---
title: "Which came first, Harry Potter or Monopoly?"
description: "Harry Potter vs Monopoly: Monopoly came first, by 93 years — 1904 against 1997. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/harry-potter-vs-monopoly/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Harry Potter or Monopoly?

**Which came first, Harry Potter or Monopoly?: Monopoly**

1904 — 93 years before Harry Potter

Monopoly came first, by 93 years. Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game.

## Side by side

|  | Harry Potter | Monopoly |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1997 | 1904 |
| Date | 1997-06-26 | 1904-01-05 |
| Category | media | media |
| What happened | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK. | Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game. |

## Harry Potter

Bloomsbury published the first book in June 1997 with a print run of 500 copies, most of which went to libraries, after twelve other publishers had rejected the manuscript. The company's chairman gave the first chapter to his eight-year-old daughter, who demanded the rest. It came out the same year as Netflix was founded and a year before Google.

## Monopoly

Parker Brothers published Monopoly in 1935 and told the story of Charles Darrow, an unemployed man who invented it at his kitchen table. The truth is that Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord's Game in 1904 — a nearly identical board designed to demonstrate how land monopolies impoverish tenants, which is precisely the opposite of the message the commercial version carries. Parker Brothers bought her patent for $500.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Harry Potter or Monopoly?

Monopoly, by 93 years — 1904 against 1997.

### When did Harry Potter start?

1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the UK.

### When did Monopoly start?

1904. Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]