Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the third in the "Harry Potter" series. The book follows Harry Potter, a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner from Azkaban who they believe is one of Lord Voldemort's old allies. The book was published in the United Kingdom on 8 July 1999 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 8
Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series dispute arose between "Harry Potter"'s British publisher, Bloomsbury, and Asda, a British supermarket chain owned by the US corporation Wal-Mart. On 15 July, a week before the release of the final "Harry Potter" novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Asda issued a press release accusing Bloomsbury of unfairly fixing their prices. Asda spokesman Peter Pritchard claimed that Bloomsbury was "holding children to ransom" and that, "[i]t seems like Bloomsbury need to do a quid-ditch as they have sent their prices up north on the Hogwarts Express. By setting the recommended retail price at this level can only be seen