Amazon.com Revealed as Buyer of Rare Harry Potter Book
15 12 2007
Amazon.com has announced that it has bought the sole publicly sold copy of J.K. Rowling’s handwritten book, “The Tales of Beetle the Bard” for 2 million pounds (roughly $4 million). [TimesOnline]
As Rowling writes at the front of this seventh book, “Six of these books have been given to those most closely connected to the Harry Potter books during the last 17 years. This seventh copy will be auctioned, the proceeds to help institutionalised children who are in desperate need of a voice.”
Amazon won the auction and said “The company bought the book as a thank you for everything JK Rowling has done for literature, and for encouraging children to read and for parents to read with their children.”
The elaborate cover and handwritten text by J.K. Rowling herself gives the “The Tales of Beetle the Bard” a sense that it had accidentally been dropped on a London sidewalk by a hurried witch or wizard and mistakenly ended up in muggle possession.
The general public is quite lucky that the world’s largest bookseller, Amazon, has purchased this book, instead of it winding up in the vault of a private investor never to see the light of day again. They have already posted several great pictures and a reviews of the first three stories on their website. Click here to go directly to the page.
Amazon also wants to figure out a way to share the stories with Potter fans worldwide without infringing on copyright laws, but for now will be taking the book on tour around Britain for book readings at local schools.
I can’t wait for more details about these stories. Thanks Amazon!
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Will these books be published so we can buy them?
I think that’s the $50k question at this point Leta. But I believe that Rowling’s original intent was for only these seven copies be printed (thus justifying the $3.98 million price tag), so I would be surprised if we saw widely-distributed printed copies any time soon.
However, as the Times article linked above states, “Amazon is now investigating how to convey the book’s five fairytales to a wider audience without infringing any of the copyright issues surrounding the unpublished work.
“We want to enable people to see it and to hear the fantastic stories, and one of the things we’re looking at is doing readings in schools,” Mr Peachy said. ”
So I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
wow is a beautiful i am a mexican fan i love harry potter i like buy this copy but the money is very i wait what maybe miss jk rowling publique and buy