This seems pretty reasonable: after all, who now remembers that risible footnote to literary history, Charles Dickens (1812-1870)? Dickens was the first author whose work was greeted with such media-fed exuberance; in collaboration with his publishers, Chapman and Hall, he constructed a recognizable form of the same hype machine now churning furiously on J.K. Rowling's behalf, serializing his work in newspapers made cheap by advancements in printing and paper milling. Where we have "Pottermania", the 19th century had "Boz-o-mania". In the UK, labourers skipped meals to husband shillings for the next chapter of Oliver Twist; in the USA, readers descended on east coast harbours en masse to get first word from Blighty of Little Nell's fate. But it's not like those books have been passed down from generation to generation.

colby cosh, on potter
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