I agree! I think there were several sources that "inspired" JK Rowling.
1. Lord of the Rings seems to be burned into her psyche and the business about a Dark Lord who is defeated yet returns until some jewelry of his is destroyed. That's totally obvious, isn't it?
2. The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson very well may have inspired the first few chapters concerning those miserable Dursley people. A baby is abducted from a pram by a wealthy childless woman. She gives birth to her own child shortly afterwards and the abducted child winds up living in a cupboard and being a servant to the awful family and their spoiled rotten real son. Then a rescue party arrives from a magic island which is shrouded in mist and they attempt to take back the abducted child who is actually a prince in the magic land. The awful woman resists by moving into an expensive suite at a deluxe London hotel. There was confusion concerning which child is the abducted princeling. Anyhow, there is a magic passageway to the magic island on the abandonded platform 13 of Kings Cross station. More than a few plot point similarities!
3. Anthony Horowitz wrote two short novels, Groosham Grange and a sequel Return to Groosham Grange in which a child is magic but doesn't know it until he receives (parents receive) an admission letter from a boarding school. The kid, David Elliot, meets two other kids with the same circumstances on a train to the school. They form a pact to resist the school without ever knowing any more. They are ferried to an island off the coast where the school is located. The teachers are odd. One appears to be a werewolf since he gets kind of nasty when the moon is near full. He is Mr. Le Loup. David investigates things by sneaking around at night. In the sequel, there is a wizard obstacle race. There is a broomstick ride (not a sport though.. David persues an unknown villain..) The plot points are there. Mostly I point at the business about some kids are secretly magical and they need training at this magic school.
4. And Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch of course.
I could mention L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz where Dorothy Gale receives a protective kiss (and a mark on her forehead) from the good witch of the north when she arrives. That story has the "who would have guessed?" defeat of a powerful witch/wizard. And I could mention the Scooby-Doo cartoons where a bunch of "meddling kids" unmask the villains every episode. Yes, Professor Quirrell is a "masked" villain too!
My point is that JK Rowling is not so terribly original.
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Buckaroo-Robot-Monster
8 years ago
I should add the Chrestomanci series of books by Diana Wynne Jones, especially Witch Week. Her stories usually involves a child who discovers his magic powers at the age of eleven or so. Chrestomanci is an employee of the British government at the minister level and his job is to maintain law and order in a world where magic is a fact of life. Otherwise the magic people would enslave the non-magic people. Chrestomanci is thus a job title and the current Chrestomanci lives in a splendid castle.
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