Wikia

Harry Potter Wiki

    The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

    Talk3
    11,372pages on
    this wiki
    Revision as of 18:57, April 8, 2013 by Colin Fletcher (Talk | contribs)

    Hpbookdh
    The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
    Publication information
    Author

    Rita Skeeter

    Released

    July 1997

    Publisher

    The Daily Prophet Press

    Subject

    Albus Dumbledore

    "Stripping away the popular image of serene, silver-bearded wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the lawless youth, the lifelong feuds and the guilty secrets Dumbledore carried to his grave."
    —Description of Rita Skeeter's book about Dumbledore's life.[src]

    The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore is a biography of Albus Dumbledore that was written by Rita Skeeter.[1] Though it ran nine-hundred pages in length, Skeeter completed the book only four weeks after Dumbledore's death in June 1997, meaning that it was probably published in July of that year. As was her common tendency, Rita swooped down in the immediate wake of a death to ensure that public interest remained high, whilst fully exploiting the legal situation that the dead cannot be libelled. The book was rated with five stars by the Daily Prophet. Prior to its release, Betty Braithwaite had visited Rita's home for an interview about the title, and Rita served her tea and a slice of pound cake. It is probably because of this "warmth and softness" that Braithwaite's write-up was highly favourable and quite heavily biased in favour of Skeeter.

    Contents

    DH1 Photo of Teenager Albus Dumbledore
    One of the pages of the book, featuring Gellert Grindelwald.
    You-Know-WhoAdded by You-Know-Who

    The book contained some controversial, though partially true, revelations about Dumbledore and his family, for example, the story of covering up of the "sickness" of Dumbledore's sister Ariana. It also talked about how Dumbledore's father was imprisoned in Azkaban for attacking three Muggles, and explored Dumbledore's relationship in his younger days with Gellert Grindelwald, who would later become an immensely powerful Dark Wizard, for many second only to Voldemort, and would be defeated in 1945 by Dumbledore himself.

    In a sneak peek in the Daily Prophet, Rita says that there is a whole chapter on the Dumbledore/Potter relationship. In this article, Rita also comments on the speculation that Harry may have been involved with Dumbledore's murder.

    Reactions

    DH1 The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore book cover
    Back cover of the book, featuring the author Rita Skeeter.
    You-Know-WhoAdded by You-Know-Who
    Muriel: "Don't despair, Elphias. I'm told he's been thoroughly unriddled by Rita Skeeter, in 800 pages, no less! Word has it that someone talked to her. Someone who knew the Dumbledore family well. Both you and I know who that is, Elphias..."
    Elphias: "A monstrous betrayal!"
    Muriel and Elphias Doge discussing the book.[src]

    Skeeter's book was widely discussed and opinions toward it were polarised. Some people, such as Ron's Auntie Muriel, praised Skeeter, while others, such as Elphias Doge and Harry Potter, were furious over Skeeter's conspicuous attempt to impugn Dumbledore's character, Elphias Doge stating that "Skeeter's book contains less fact than a Chocolate Frog Card." Harry, though angry, did acknowledge the fact of Dumbledore and Grindelwald having once been friends, based on a copy of the letter Dumbledore wrote being printed inside the book.

    An article concerning The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore was published in the Daily Prophet, which was supplemented by an interview with Rita Skeeter about her views on her book. This, of course, was also a promotional piece, as the interview was published before the book was released.[2]

    Hermione Granger's copy

    Hermione with the book
    Hermione holding the book.
    AmphareeceAdded by Amphareece

    During the search for Voldemort's Horcruxes, Hermione Granger obtained Bathilda Bagshot's copy of the book. From this, she and Harry Potter learned of Ariana's mysterious death and Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald.

    This part of the book at least was confirmed to be true by Aberforth Dumbledore, and later by the spirit of Albus himself (who explained the background to the fragments Harry had learned), showing that Rita did get at least some of her facts straight, despite not knowing the whole story.

    Bathilda Bagshot's copy

    Rita's note
    Rita's note attached to Bathilda's copy.
    AmphareeceAdded by Amphareece

    Not long after the release of Rita Skeeter's book, she had a copy sent to one of her most valuable sources for the most vulgar and interesting lies and half-truths provided, Bathilda Bagshot. While under the influence of Veritaserum, Bathilda unwittingly provided her with background information of Dumbledore himself, and Grindlewald, her great nephew.

    Rita had written Bathilda a very cheerful thank you note and had it sent to her, either just before, or at the time that the real Bathilda was killed by Voldemort, and she was taken over by his snake, Nagini.

    "Dear Batty, Thanks for your help. Here's a copy of the book, hope you like it. You said everything, even if you don't remember it. Rita"
    —The note Rita Skeeter left attached to the copy of the book she sent to Bathilda Bagshot

    Behind the scenes

    • Given the speed at which the book was published in spite of its length, the author may have had much of it planned and/or compiled pre-mortem. However, it is also possible that this speed of publication is not unusual in the wizarding world, with magic to help it along, possibly with the help of a Quick-Quotes Quill.
    • Ironically, the book title "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore" is probably quite accurate since it is a book about Dumbledore's life and there will undoubtedly be lies about it contained therein.
    • Given Betty Braithewaite's heavy bias in her write-up, it is possible that she, like Skeeter, liked gossip and mistrusted Dumbledore.

    Appearances

    Notes and references

    1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Chapter 2 (In Memoriam)
    2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Chapter 18 (The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore)
      Advertisement | Your ad here

      Around Wikia's network

      Random Wiki
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/The_Life_and_Lies_of_Albus_Dumbledore?oldid=785548
harrypotter.wikia.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2013-48
87424
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:TSVZBTBNV3MHQUBA4RYO7IKLFA5Z6TIR
<urn:uuid:01f51cd1-317f-457c-84cd-d1f9cc50a37f>
2013-12-11T08:34:26Z
199.27.76.131
sha1:HZGT5GVJ6WWYYCW5T3EFR77SYWIQGK4O
<urn:uuid:288d3caf-d5ec-4219-bde9-fc613eaf2dac>
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/The_Life_and_Lies_of_Albus_Dumbledore?oldid=785548
response
<urn:uuid:2d8c1fb1-d162-4fda-88ca-7fa6f0ffbd51>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2013-48
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for Winter 2013
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf