Product Description

Harry Potter is a wizard. He is in his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Little does he know that this year will be just as eventful as the last ...The second in the Harry Potter series to be translated into Latin for the first time, this follows in the steps of other great children's classics. The huge task of translating into Latin (most translations are done from Latin) has been undertaken by Peter Needham, who taught Latin at Eton for over 30 years. James Morwood, of Oxford University, has said of the translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: 'The translation is great stuff. It is accurate and fluent, but it is much more than that. It has been carried off with wit, inventiveness, sensitivity and panache. I find it impossible to think of its being better done.'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #177227 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-02
• Original language: Latin, English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was J.K. Rowling's first novel. The Harry Potter novels have won many prizes and have consistently been on the bestseller lists. They have now sold over 320 million copies world wide. Originally published as an author for children and still primarily so, J.K. Rowling has generated huge popular appeal for her books in an unprecedented fashion. J.K. Rowling was the first children's author to be voted the BA Author of the Year, and also to win the British Book Awards Author of the Year. Major films have now been made of the first four books in the series. The translator, Peter Needham, taught Classics at Eton for over 30 years. He has also translated Paddington Bear into Latin, Ursus Nomine Paddington. Peter Needham lives in Slough.

Customer Reviews

More fun for Latinate Potter fans
This volume follows on the heels of the same translator's Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, and is as enjoyable a read as its predecessor. The book is, as would be expected, a quicker and easier read if you are already familiar with N's style: no convoluted Ciceronian periods, but a more anglicised syntax demonstrating a thorough command of vocabulary, grammar and idiom - a real tour de force. Some familiar vocabulary reappears of course: manubrium scoparum (broomstick), citrina fervescens (sherbet lemon, p166), ludus Caledonicus (golf, pp5, 58). Ingenious neologisms include vitritersoria (windscreen wipers, p57), quadrulas duplices panis (sandwiches, p65), aeronaves salientes inversa vi propulsae (jump jets, p98), Roentgeniani radii (X-rays, p117), baculum missile Antipodum (boomerang, p137), fervefactorium (kettle, p211) and libum transatlanticum baccarum conditura confertum (jam doughnut, p275).

But it is the ingenuity of how the vocabulary is deployed which is the major source of enjoyment. Hence `Touchdown!' - terram habemus (p25); `Harry stepped over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards' - Harrius iit supra acervum chartularum lusoriarum Se Sponte Miscentium (p32); `freshly caught Cornish pixies' - pixii Dumnoniorum nuper capti (p80); `The minutes snailed by' - minuta cursu cochleae, ut ita dicam, praeteribant (p95). Nor are literary effects wanting: `Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle' becomes Myrta maesta, maerens, miserabilis (p109), and, as in the previous book, couplets are used when appropriate:

`Oh Potter, you rotter, oh what have you done?
You're killing off students, you think it's good fun':
quid scelus admisti, mihi dic, o pessime Potter,
cui placet assiduo caedere discipulos? (p165, cf. p194)

I spotted only a few typos (contahere, p30; dificillimum, p74, resposum p196, Voldemart p229, effeciebat p243, quiquaginta p249, inucundum p273), but these do not detract a jot from the pleasure this volume gives. I look forward to the appearance of Harrius Potter et Captivus Azkabani.

Clear and Elegant
Needham's translation of the second title in the Harry Potter series is no less competent than that of the first. He is not afraid to deviate from the original English to create a stylish, authentic rendition: `Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum' should be of interest to Potter fans and classical scholars alike.