Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the publisher of all "Harry Potter" books in the United Kingdom, on 30 June 1997. It was released in the United States on 1 September 1998 by Scholastic—the American publisher of the books—as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", after Rowling had received US$105,000 for the American rights—an unprecedented amount for a children's book by a then-unknown author. The second book, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998, and in the US on 2 June 1999. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was then published a year later in
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series number of Wiccans and other commenters have argued that the critics' definition of Wicca tends to lump together many and various spiritualist practices that actually have little in common. They have also highlighted the differences between magic within Wicca, which is invocational and derives from the divine powers, and that depicted by the "Harry Potter" books, which is a purely mechanical application of spells without invoking any deities. A Wiccan review of "Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged" pointed out that "communing with the dead and spirit world, sorcery, curses, occult symbology, black magic [and] demon possession"—all cited by the book as