I have, I believe, blithered in the past about my wish to get a copy of the British edition of the first Harry Potter book, on the grounds that the American edition has been Americanized (Mum = Mom, public school = private school) and it makes me crazy. After the first one became a hit, Rowling got the traditional "nobody changes a word" clause in her contract, so all the other volumes are fine. But I want the first one in proper British English.
I've been looking for years and found British editions of #2 and #4, not that it makes much of a difference. Anyway, I thought they were from Britain. #4 proves to be from Canada. Now I've been to Britain and I've been to Canada, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Canada would use the British covers and formats. I guess I just assumed that Scholastic Books owned all of North America by now.
Dumber than that, though, is how bad a job I did looking. I searched Amazon and it appeared that to get "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (different title outside the US), I would have to order from UK Amazon and pay in English pounds. This is silly and I have no idea how I jumped to this conclusion. Anyway, searching apart from Amazon shows that I could get damn thing through Abe Books for about $3, no shipping charge. What a storm in a teacup that was! Wait, do Canadians say "Mum" or "Mom"?
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