The Tales of Beedle the Bard-new book

Record-Breaking Deathly Hallows

JK Rowling brought anguish to the millions of Harry Potter fans worldwide when she confirmed that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would be the seventh and final book in this phenomenally successful series. The book broke all sales records when it was published in 2007, becoming the fastest selling book of all time despite only being available in hardback, selling 11 million copes in the first twenty-four hours of release – breaking the record JK Rowling herself had set with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in 2005.

Beedle the Bard Released Dec 2008

However, any Harry Potter fans suffering from withdrawal symptoms can console themselves that a new volume written by JK Rowling will be available from December 4th 2008. The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of five fairy stories illustrated by Rowling herself, and first appeared last December in a very limited edition of just seven copies, each hand-written by the author. One copy was purchased by Amazon for a record-breaking 1.95 million, the highest price ever achieved at auction for a modern literary manuscript.

The collection is now to be widely available from December 4th 2008, with illustrations reproduced from the original. The five stories are:

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

The Warlock's Hairy Heart

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

The Tale of the Three Brothers – this is the only one of the five stories that appears in the Harry Potter series, in chapter 11 of Deathly Hallows.

The most interesting aspect of the new book for Harry fans is likely to be the commentary (including footnotes) by Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, who brings his own perspective to the collection. The book itself is referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where it is described as a popular collection of wizarding children's fairy tales, and is bequeathed to Hermione by Dumbledore.

Collector's Edition

The book will be available as a standard edition priced at 6.99, or as a special limited-edition collector's copy available exclusively through Amazon with ten new illustrations, likely to be priced at 50. Up to 100,000 of this collector's edition will be produced, and profits from the sale of both editions will be donated to the Children's High Level Group – it is hoped the book will raise around 4 million pounds.

Both are available for pre-order from Amazon , and the standard edition will be available from all major booksellers. Hardcover, 128 pages, pub. Dec 4th 2008 by Children's High Level Group, ISBN 978-0747599876 (standard edition).

The copyright of the article The Tales of Beedle the Bard in British/UK Fiction is owned by Elizabeth Gregory. Permission to republish The Tales of Beedle the Bard in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.