-Harry Potter

No exploration of imaginary places fabricated in the 20th and 21st centuries would be complete without a journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Diagon Alley. Author J.K. Rowling’s literary phenomenon has been the subject of extensive scholarship that examines the fantastical parallel universe that young wizard Harry Potter and his classmates accessed by boarding a train on Platform 9 ¾ in London’s King’s Cross Station. Through a series of seven novels that chronicle the adventures of Potter, readers are introduced to Diagon Alley, the wizarding world’s shopping district where Hogwarts students are outfitted with wands and other paraphernalia, and then transported to the imaginary school itself via steam engine.