Philosopher’s Stone signed by J.K. Rowling goes to auction

By the Pottermore Team

A copy of the deluxe illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, signed by J.K. Rowling, is to be auctioned off for charity by Sotheby’s London.

The first printed copy of Jim Kay’s deluxe illustrated edition of Philosopher’s Stone, signed by both Kay and J.K. Rowling, is to go under the hammer on 15 December with all the proceeds going to children’s charity Lumos.

On the title page J.K. Rowling has written: ‘The book that changed my life,’ as well as her signature. Illustrator Jim Kay has added his too, along with the message: ‘Mine too! Thank you Jo.’

It’s a very special edition indeed; the first of the run to be printed, it was hand-bound in Italy. The deluxe edition also includes a double pull-out gatefold of Diagon Alley, as well as intricate foiled line art by the illustrator on the real cloth cover and slipcase.

Jim Kay being the immensely creative chap that he is, there’s even an original drawing of Norbert the baby dragon (see below) opposite the autographs.

Deluxe edition illustrated Philosopher's Stone autographs
Illustration by Jim Kay © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2015, taken from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - deluxe illustrated edition

Dr Philip Errington, Sotheby’s specialist in books and manuscript, said: ‘Sotheby’s is delighted, once again, to offer a unique Rowling item sold to benefit Lumos.

‘The first ever copy of the first deluxe illustrated edition signed by both author and illustrator is a magnificent item and one which we hope will interest a range of buyers.’

The book is expected to fetch between £2,000 and £3,000. However, in 2007 a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard far exceeded its expected price and was bought for a record £1.95 million, which went to Lumos.

Lumos is an international non-governmental, non-profit organisation formed by J.K. Rowling to help countries reform their services for vulnerable children, moving from systems based on residential institutions and orphanages to services that help families stay together in the community.

Make a donation to Lumos
https://www.pottermore.com/news/deluxe-illustrated-philosophers-stone-signed-by-jk-rowling-goes-to-auction
www.pottermore.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-09
24562
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:43Y3DPOLZZKRKZW64G4LK6DD3PH6VW27
<urn:uuid:d638056a-f91d-4990-ad30-1507599f6fc5>
2019-02-20T03:48:32Z
151.101.248.70
text/html
sha1:DNUPAFFXRZHFHL3CI2CKT2XUAABP3B3A
<urn:uuid:c659f974-866b-45ab-9c0c-4b2510af7997>
https://www.pottermore.com/news/deluxe-illustrated-philosophers-stone-signed-by-jk-rowling-goes-to-auction
response
<urn:uuid:ec6e9317-c1d2-4a95-9ab7-027a8f0b2438>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-09
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for February 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-166-118-163.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/