33 works across 28 centuries, back to Iliad and Odyssey.
Following one thread, 3 works from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to The Snow Queen. Back to all 33 works
1997
J. K. Rowling
Late 20th century. Britain. Written in English.
An orphan raised by cruel relatives learns at eleven that he is a wizard and enters Hogwarts, a boarding school for magic, where he and two friends uncover a plot to steal an alchemical stone that grants immortality. It joins the British boarding-school story to the English children's fantasy tradition and sets the plot up as a clue-planted mystery.
1950
C. S. Lewis
Mid-20th century. England. Written in English.
Four children evacuated from London pass through a wardrobe into Narnia, where the lion Aslan dies and rises again to break the White Witch's winter.
Thematic kinship, probable.
Rowling has said she loved the Narnia books as a child. Like the wardrobe, the barrier at King's Cross is a hidden doorway from wartime or suburban drabness into a magical world where a child has a destined part in the struggle against an evil power.
1844
Hans Christian Andersen
Danish Golden Age. Denmark. Written in Danish.
Fairy tale in which the boy Kay, his heart chilled by a splinter of a troll mirror, is carried off by the Snow Queen's sledge and rescued by his friend Gerda.
Direct source, probable.
The White Witch, who rides a sledge, keeps her land in winter and wins over the boy Edmund with sweets until his heart turns cold, closely parallels Andersen's Snow Queen and her captive Kay. Critics regularly cite the tale as a source.
The line stops here: andersen's sources are Danish folklore and his own invention.
