New audiobooks of all seven titles in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series will be released exclusively on Audible in late 2025. More than 100 performers will be cast to voice the books’ various characters and “bring these iconic stories to life as never heard before”.
A joint statement from Amazon-owned Audible and Pottermore Publishing, the audio and ebook publisher of the Harry Potter series, said the new audiobooks will not aim to replace the much-loved single-voice English-language recordings by Jim Dale and Stephen Fry, but “sit alongside and complement” them.
As well as a full cast of actors, which is yet to be announced, the new audiobooks will differ from the older versions by including “a groundbreaking new soundscape”, according to Bob Carrigan, CEO of Audible, which will include original music and real-world sound capture.
Neil Blair, chairman of Pottermore Publishing, said: “JK Rowling’s storytelling lends itself perfectly to the application of new audiobook technologies, and we’re certain this sophisticated, immersive audio experience will not only add a new listening dimension for existing fans but will introduce a whole new generation of listeners to the wizarding world.”
Each of the seven English language audiobooks is set to be released sequentially, starting with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in which Harry finds out he is a wizard and heads off to magical boarding school Hogwarts for the first time, through to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where the now 17-year-old hero must try to fight off supervillain Lord Voldemort once and for all.
The original Harry Potter audiobooks were first published in 1999. They have accrued a total of 1.4bn global listening hours on Audible, making them among the most popular titles on the app.
Audible is currently the dominant player in the audiobook market, although last year Spotify became a competitor. The music streaming app launched an audiobook service for its Premium subscribers in October, which it says a quarter of its eligible users are accessing.
Audible’s new Harry Potter audiobooks follow the app’s previous starry audio adaptations of Dickens novels: Sam Mendes-produced audiobooks of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist have come out over the last two years, featuring Ncuti Gatwa, Helena Bonham Carter and Nicola Coughlan.
