News culture “Disappointing” JK Rowling suffers a huge flop, a collector’s version of the first Harry Potter novel does not interest anyone
The fame of Harry Potter is well established and today the brand is one of the most powerful in pop culture. Suffice to say that this school expected to recover a lot of money by selling this rather special edition of the very first book at auction.
A particularly rare copy
As you probably know (well, maybe), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book in the Harry Potter saga, written by JK Rowling. The novel was published in 1998 in France and a year earlier, in 1997, in its original English version. The basic title is also Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, or Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
A first adventure at Hogwarts that will blow a little nostalgia in some and yet, it was obviously not enough to seduce the most daring fans: a copy of this very rare first book did not find a buyer at auction.
For the little storye, the work was purchased for only £1 in 1997 by the headmaster of an English primary school, in the village of Minster Lovell. The book is notably part of the 200 copies printed by Bloomsbury before the rise of Harry Potter worldwide, even wanting to be “uncorrected”‘.
Jim Spencer, head of auction books at Hansons Auctionio
Harry Potter permanently orphaned
This very collector’s version was put up for auction at Hansons Auctioneers at £13,000 (€15,139)… but found no takers. The firm’s book manager Jim Spencer described the unsuccessful sale as “disappointing” and intends to reach £20,000 at an auction next November.
Ultimately, if we had sold it too low, it would have been a mistake. It fully deserves to reach the upper £15,000-£20,000 range. With such a good cause, I wanted to get a large amount of money for the school.
Because yes, the school director, Bob Alder, has a very laudable objective: recover the money from the sale to “further develop” his students’ interest in literature thanks to brand new equipment. In 1997, he came across this “uncorrected” copy for publishers at a bookstore, which wanted to give a “taste” of the world of Harry Potter to the public. See you next November to see if anyone interested will speak out.
