Rowling’s magnificent seven

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The last time I saw a book treated with as much care as J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard,’ I was at the Huntington Library in San Marino, looking at a display for the Gutenberg Bible. But wait, a distinction is necessary here: The experiences are hardly the same. The security surrounding that bible, a precious relic from the dawn of the printing age, hardly compares with the treatment given to a book of fairy tales handcopied and illustrated by the bestselling author.

‘Tales’ was referenced in the final Harry Potter novel, and Rowling gave its creation a personal touch, making the books by hand--take that, Gutenberg!--and stopping after making her seventh (Gutenberg to Rowling: ‘Is that it?’). One of the books was auctioned at Sotheby’s this week for $4 million to Internet retailer Amazon.com, all of which will go to a children’s relief organization co-founded by Rowling.

Now that the book is in Amazon’s gentle, gloved hands, you can get a tantalizing glimpse of that auction copy--bound in leather and decorated with silver, moonstones and skulls--as well as a synopsis of one of the tales, ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.’ (Amazon promises to reveal more about the book’s contents soon in what must be one of the shrewdest efforts to keep Web traffic pouring into the site).

So far, customer discussion at the website centers on an obvious question: ‘What about us?’ Despite the fact that the book is an extremely limited edition, it is hard to imagine not seeing it one day, either officially published or in bootleg form.

Nick Owchar