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We know the credited author of Magical Me is Gilderoy Lockhart. Did he actually write the book, or did he trick or force or enchant someone else to write it?

On the one hand, it's uncharacteristic of Lockhart to actually do any work if he can trick or magic someone else into it, but on the other hand, the one thing he loves to do is boast and brag, and it seems that's what this book is about (along with his others).

Is there any indication he actually wrote this (and his other books) or that, instead, he found a way to get others to do the work for him?

(And, yes, I know if he tricked Nearly Headless Nick into writing it, then he'd have a ghost writer - disappointed I got to that joke before anyone could make a comment on it, aren't you?)

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  • Hmm, now I wonder if Lockhart actually writes replies to the fan mail he gets, or just sends signed photos to everyone without any comment.
    – b_jonas
    Oct 9, 2016 at 23:21

2 Answers 2

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Canon says he did:

"You mean you're running away?" said Harry disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did in your books -"

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!" Harry shouted.

"My dear boy," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Harry. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a harelip. I mean, come on -"

Chamber of Secrets - page 297 - US Hardcover

There's nothing in canon or elsewhere that states Gilderoy Lockhart didn't write his own books. At least not that I could find.

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    I don't see Lockhart explicitly saying he wrote the books; he just doesn't contradict Harry's statement that he did. And he could still be lying. I tend to think he wrote them, but this doesn't quite prove it.
    – Keith Thompson
    Mar 31, 2012 at 16:46
  • @KeithThompson - It doesn't disprove it either. :)
    – Slytherincess
    Mar 31, 2012 at 18:02
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    I think it would be too much trouble to have someone else write the book, who would either be knowing of the fraud or possibly become suspicious of it. They'd be another liability whom Lockhart would either have to eliminate or have their memory erased. It's probably less work for him to have penned it himself. While there may be nothing in canon to say that he did write it, I'm fairly sure that logic points us toward that presumption.
    – Iszi
    Apr 1, 2012 at 2:58
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    I think the confusion is assumption based: Tango asked if he WROTE them, not if he was writing about what he, himself, had done. It looks like he wrote them, just substituting himself for the actual hero in each, and wiping their memory so they wouldn't contradict him.
    – K-H-W
    Apr 1, 2012 at 16:08
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Lockhart's familiarity with the multiple disparite sources in his diatribe at Harry shows that, at the very least, he's collated their stories, and edited them.

If's a fair thing to say he's probably written the actual text, based upon editing stories he's collected from others.

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