I wasn't sure if I was going to pick up the new illustrated edition of the first Harry Potter book but after looking at in a bookstore a couple of time I decided to get one. It's big honking book, about 10 by 11 inches and over an inch think. There are 256 pages on a nice dense heavy stock making it weight over 3 pounds. I won't be holding it up to read it.
It's heavily illustrated by Jim Kay, though not every page has an illustration. Even the plain text pages have ink on them, faint washes of color and blobs of ink or paint splattered about. It could have turned out to be a bad look but here I think it works well. It's got a 40 buck admission but I got one for 22 bucks plus tax.
I like the paintings quite a bit. There's a good number of them out on the web so I grabbed a couple or three. I thought it was a good version of Harry, alone in his broom cupboard. Those seem like some big ass spiders.
Hermione Granger was always good at making those little blue fires. Another illustration that captures the character. You can see a lot of familiar names carved into the door. I don't remember there being a door with names on it in the book, it might be there, but I could have forgotten. One of the things I've always admired about JK's writing is how she can create a setting that you think is more filled in than it really was. Just try going out to find some detail about any of the locations. There's barely anything there but it's just the right amount for you to start to fill in for yourself.
I really liked the painting of Professor McGonagall. I wonder if that's Neville's frog? The painting of Professor Snape with his potion jars is another one I liked quite a bit. I didn't care as much for the Sorting Hat illustration but overall I think as I go through the book a couple of more times I'll be liking more of the artwork. Mind you I'm always a fan of the heavily illustrated book.
There's a pricey, $275, collector's edition coming out next week but I'm not getting that. It doesn't seem like you are getting much extra for the money. Nice purple covers and a slipcase but I'm happy to have a picture of it. It's big pull is the giant fold out poster of the Diagon Alley paintings. You saw it above with Jim Kay sitting behind it above. Nice poster but not that nice. I'll be happy with the cheap version. I'm most likely not going to actually read the text. I'll just look at bits and pieces when I look at the pictures over and over. If I want to read the books again, and I will, I'll stick to reading the Canadian editions I bought. They aren't the best editions but they are the lightest I have.
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