Auction of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard"

Jo has done it once again! This time she has hand written seven copies of the children's stories from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and intends to give six of those copies to some very close friends for Christmas this year and the seventh book will be given up for auction with the proceeds going to one of her charities. The following is a quote from her concerning this.

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When it came to finding "thank you" presents for the people who have been most closely involved with Harry Potter over the years, nothing shop-bought seemed personal enough. I therefore decided to hand-write a limited number of copies of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard".

As this idea came to me only after I had finished writing "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", I was left with the task of writing stories for the three titles Ron mentions in that book: "The Fountain of Fair Fortune", "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot," and "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump" (and if anyone thinks it was easy coming up with a tale called "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump," let me disabuse them here.) I've added a new story ("The Warlock’s Hairy Heart") and completed the collection with the only fable already told, "The Tale of the Three Brothers".

There were really six people I wanted to honour – the real insiders - but it had to be seven copies, not six. I have therefore decided to auction the seventh book for The Children's Voice (previously the Children's High Level Group), the charity I co-founded to campaign for the rights of institutionalised children.

Each of the seven copies of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" has a different dedication; all are leather-bound and embellished with silver and different semi-precious stones. The seventh book (the Moonstone edition) will be auctioned at Sotheby's in London on December 13th 2007. The book will be on display to the public for a short period before the sale, and catalogues will be sold, all profits going to the Children's Voice.

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Update: Dec. 15 — Amazon.com has now posted more photos, and more
importantly, synopses of 2 of the 5 new stories in the book. They’re
expected to post the rest very soon. This is great, and provides Potter
fans an insight into the stories which they otherwise would not have
had if some rich multi-millionaire collector actually won the auction.
The complete synopses for all stories are here!

The original news post follows:
Guess who bought Beedle the Bard for almost 4 million US dollars?
We’re incredibly excited to announce that Amazon has purchased
J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard at an auction held by
Sotheby’s in London. The book of five wizarding fairy tales, referenced
in the last book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows, is one of only seven handmade copies in existence. The
purchase price was £1,950,000, and Ms. Rowling is donating the proceeds
to The Children’s Voice campaign, a charity she co-founded to help
improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe.
Keep checking this link: Click Click!
or this one: www.amazon.com/beedlebard
for Amazon’s editorial reviews of the stories, coming soon.
They also revealed they plan to take the book on-tour in schools in the U.S.

http://hogwartsphilippines.org/book7/?p=188


It'd be awesome if they made copies for sale later on.