The rare bejeweled and handwritten copy of J.K Rowling's
The Tales of Beedle the Bard went to auction on Tuesday at Sotheby's in London, and brought in over £370,000 (above $460,000 USD).
The copy was written by the
Harry Potter author and given to Barry Cunningham, the British publisher who bought the rights to
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone nearly 20 years ago in the UK for Bloomsbury.
Of newsworthy note regarding this sale is that Cunningham will give some of the proceeds to Rowling's charity
Lumos, and it was only due to this clause that the author would agree to allow the auction to take place in the first place. The rest of the money will be divided among Cunningham's children as their inheritance.
J.K. Rowling wrote this personal note to Cunningham in the book, which is one of seven rare hand-written books by the author given out to those near and dear to her.
Quote:
"To Barry, the man who thought an overlong novel about a boy wizard in glasses might just sell… THANK YOU."
Six of the books were given to those close to the creation and release of the
Harry Potter series, including Cunningham and Scholastic publisher Arthur Levine, while the seventh was auctioned off years ago, bringing in well over $1 million.