The Art of Splendor Solis, the Most Glorious Illuminated Alchemical Manuscript of Them All

When it was published in the United States in 1998, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The jokes about the American reading public’s apparent allergy to the very word philosopher write themselves, but the change was also unfortunate for more substantial reasons. A “sorcerer’s stone” had no cultural resonance […]