A first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone fetched $228,000 at a London auction on Tuesday.
The book is perhaps one of the most popular of all-time because it contains notes and original illustrations created by J.K. Rowling.
In preparing to sell the first edition of Philosopher’s Stone , J.K. Rowling added personal annotations, editorial decisions, comments on the process of writing, and even a note about how she came up with the idea of Quidditch. Rowling also drew nearly two dozen illustrations for the book. Among those drawings were a baby Harry potter sleeping on a door step and an Albus Dumbledore Chocolate Frog card.
The book was being sold by Sotheby’s as part of a book sale that was helped along by the English Pen writers’ association. The book ultimately sold to an anonymous bidder who phoned in their offer.
Best-selling authors participating in the book auction were asked to “scribble second thoughts, marginalia or drawings” on a first-edition copy of one of their books.
Another big treat was Roald Dahl’s book Matilda , which fetched $45,500. Matilda’s first edition sale arrived with new illustrations from Quentin Blake.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day sold for $27,300.
If you don’t have $228,000 to read J.K. Rowling’s thoughts, you can always check out this commercially available book:
With various other authors participating in the auction for charity, the book sale fetched an impressive total of $663,310.
J.K. Rowling is no stranger to big book sales. First editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone regularly sell on Ebay for upwards of $1400 to $1600. Signed copies of Harry Potter in first edition form can sell for even higher prices. In some cases, her books with personal touches bring in record sums for their period of publication.
Could you justifying spending $228,000 on a relatively new book if you had the money to spend?