Literary Lineage

The lineage of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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

  1. 1749

    The Governess, or The Little Female Academy

    Sarah Fielding

    Georgian. England. written in English.

    Short book about nine girls at a small boarding school who tell stories and learn to govern their quarrels. Usually called the first English school story for children.

    What it handed down

    To Tom Brown's School Days (1857)

    Disputed link, conjectural.

    Fielding's book began the English school story, with a small closed community of pupils whose quarrels and reforms make up the plot. Historians of children's literature place Hughes in that line, though there is no record that he read Fielding.

    Where it came from

    The line stops here: minor branch; its models are educational tracts and moral fables rather than a single literary source.

    Find “The Governess, or The Little Female Academy” on Amazon

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