A guide to the book that’s “inspiring” the new Harry Potter spin-off movies . Spoilers for the books, obviously.
In March 2001, J.K. Rowling released two companion books to the Harry Potter series for the U.K. charity Comic Relief. "They are two titles that appear in the novels," Rowling explained in an interview at the time. "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is a book that Harry buys to go to Hogwarts so it's one of his school textbooks and Quidditch Through The Ages is a library title. I always write more than I need for the books so bits of them were just written for my own fun. So when Comic Relief asked me to write something I thought I would just love to write them, I just thought it would be so much fun and I was completely correct. It was more fun than I've had writing the others." For both books, Rowling writes under the name of the authors who are listed in the Harry Potter universe: Newt Scamander and Kennilworthy Whisp.
Given that Fantastic Beasts is a textbook, following an introduction by Albus Dumbledore, it launches into a discussion of magizoology — the study of magical creatures — and a description of the various laws and regulations in place to keep wizards safe and Muggles from discovering the existence of such creatures. Scamander also explains the controversial distinction between "beings," creatures such as merpeople who are deemed intelligent enough to understand the laws of the magical community, and "beasts." After this somewhat lengthy introduction, the book describes the Ministry of Magic's official classifications for magical creatures and lists all of them, complete with descriptions.
According to Rowling's website, the sales of the two books have generated more than £17 million ($27 million) for Comic Relief.
