Title Selected for Seventh Harry Potter Novel

Posted on December 22, 2006

The title for the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series has been announced. The title will be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Amazon.com has alread set up a page for the book even though a publication date has not been set. The Washington Post reports that the title has Harry Potter fans nervously wondering what the "Deathy Hallows" means for Harry and his friends.

The intriguing and ominous title had Potter aficionados puzzling over what might happen to the bespectacled hero.
"Will a favorite character die? Could Harry himself face a grisly demise? How will it all end?" asked Sam Harrison, children's buyer at the British bookchain Waterstone's.
"But surely the question all Potter fans will want answering as soon as possible is - when can they get their hands on a copy?"

J.K. Rowling also left the following diary entry on her website. In it she even mentions dreaming of Harry Potter.

For years now, people have asked me whether I ever dream that I am "in" Harry's world. The answer was "no" until a few nights ago, when I had an epic dream in which I was, simulataneously, Harry and the narrator. I was searching for a Horcrux in a gigantic, crowded hall which bore no resemblance to the Great Hall as I imagine it. As the narrator I knew perfectly well that the Horcrux was jammed in a hidden nook in the fireplace, while as Harry I was searching for it in all kinds of other places, while trying to make the people around me say lines I had pre-arranged for them. Meanwhile waiters and waitresses who work in the real cafe in which I have written huge parts of book seven roamed around me as though on stilts, all of them at least fifteen feet high. Perhaps I should cut back on the caffeine.

She shouldn't cut back on the caffeine if it is helping her finish the book. While we do have a title for Book Seven we still don't have a publication date. Scholastic released a statement that the "publication date for book seven has not been set." They do mention that the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out in July, 2007 and that this should make the waiting a little easier. That must mean they aren't expecting a publication date before July.