Harry Potter in Poland – searching for the base for translation and a review of available versions of the book

Abstract

The Harry Potter series has been available in Poland for twenty years. Yet, it is still unknown what its translation basis was and how many different versions of the edition have appeared on the market. This article is an attempt to find answers to these questions.

In the first part, the author performs a comparison of the British text version and its American adaptation, to find out what the differences between them are. Then, it is important to verify which version came into the Polish translation, which allow to indicate on which variant’s basis the Polish version of the text came to be.

The second part is dedicated to the analysis of the first edition of the first volume. There, the author looks for changes in both typically editorial parts and the main text of the book to determine what changes have been introduced in following printings and editions, and in which succession they appeared on the market.