Harry Potter encyclopedia in progress, says JK Rowling

She says that all the royalties from this book will be donated to charity.

 

I thought it had 'been in progress' since Deathly Hallows. Well, if she's only just starting I'm going to say... three years minimum before it's published.

 

What happened with JKR's legal action against the Harry Potter Lexicon? I recall that the Lexicon was going to publish a book version and JKR took them to court to stop it - in part because she wanted to publish her own encyclopedia. What was the outcome?

 

I can't recall myself, but I think it got worked out. I remember picking it up in a bookstore a few years ago.

 

Why bother? It's just merchandizing, anything she adds to canon at this point could as well be fanon.

 

By that logic then so were the last 6 books... And ya know, charity.

 

RDR books was banned from publishing.

However, as part of the trial, Warner Brothers posted PDFs of the entire Lexicon encyclopaedia online as part of a publically searchable evidence dump.

I may have these PDFs, if anyone wants them.

(Not warez, because they're not published materials, and were put online by WB and JKR themselves).

 

I'd be interested.

 

Reading up on it, it looks like the one I saw in the book store was this one.

 

To the people sending me PMs for the encyclopaedia, please ponder the following riddle:

Does a man who asks for something, but provides no means of receiving that thing, really want it?

That is to say: include your email addresses, please.

 

Uh, who would ever do such a retarded thing? Certainly not I. >_>

 

Wait, I thought that was Taure...??

 

Looks like JKR just nixed the long-awaited encyclopedia in her website's FAQ.

This was updated yesterday.

There are no words to express my rage.

 

Wow. Unless she had to say that because of legal issues or because of her agent or something else beyond her power, I just lost a lot of respect for her.

Not because she isn't doing the encyclopedia after all, but for going back on her word like that and pretending that the old answer in that FAQ was never there. I hate that sort of revisionism.

Why not say, "Unexpected difficulties arose, so this project will have to be postponed indefinitely. I'm sorry about that," or something diplomatic like that?

The way she worded it makes it sound like, "You already have Pottermore, you ingrates, so stop waiting for that Encyclopedia. It's never coming."

 

I'm showing my age here, but I remember when I was heckling websites about whether or not more of HP was going to be published in 1998, and we got the same response. She later confessed in an interview that the sudden deluge of pressure made her feel so terrible she contemplated breaking her arm just so she could have a break.
Perhaps this is the same issue - too much pressure causes her to back off of a project. I agree it could have been worded better, but we can say that about a lot of what JK Rowling writes...

 

I didn't know about that, but it makes sense.

Goodness, I hope it was an update born out of stress and that she didn't realize how it could come across.

If that's the case it might be edited later to something that sounds better and less, "There was never going to be an Encyclopedia. I never said anything about writing one. What are you talking about?".

 

Sounds to me like she never really planned to write it, and this is just one last 'haha fuck you' to the HP Lexicon dude who actually wanted to write and publish an encyclopedia. Sort of a 'Check out this dick move: No, you can't write a Potter encyclopedia, I'm gonna write one! Psych! Not gonna write it! And now no one would buy yours anyway, but thanks for making a free site to satisfy people's interest!'

And if pressure kicks her ass, then no wonder the quality of writing, plotting, and storytelling went to shit in HBP and DH.

 

You know, I wouldn't mind this so much if Pottermore was actually set up as a legitimate compendium of superfluous Potter knowledge. But it's not.