Literary Lineage

The lineage of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

33 works across 28 centuries, back to Iliad and Odyssey.

  1. 1795-96

    Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Weimar Classicism. Germany. written in German.

    Novel of a merchant's son who tries the theatre and finds his way to maturity under a secret society. The model for the German novel of education.

    What it handed down

    To Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802)

    Thematic kinship, well documented.

    Novalis admired Wilhelm Meister at first, then came to reject its prosaic ending. He planned Heinrich von Ofterdingen as a poetic counter-novel of education in which the hero becomes a poet rather than a practical man.

    Where it came from

    The line stops here: minor branch, followed here only as the book Novalis set out to answer.

    Find “Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship” on Amazon

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Preview card: the tree of influence behind Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone