Addressing the 'phenomenon' of Harry Potter and the scholarly and media attention that has been devoted to the novels and adaptations, this updated new edition of Re-Reading Harry Potter discusses the political and social presumptions that are ingrained in the books, in terms of political ideology, class and race, gender and sexuality. The book features four new chapters which move beyond the text-to-world method of the first edition to assume a world-to-text method, with the complete series of novels in view. A comprehensive new Introduction contextualises this second edition, and examines themes of religion in the later books in the series, the impact of the Harry Potter phenomenon in non-Anglophone markets (such as China), and the enormous rise of Harry Potter fan fiction.