Rowling's Potter Prequel Conjures Up $49K for Charity

Only 7 copies of the Tales of Beedle the Bard exist

(NEWSER) - Sotheby’s figured The Tales of Beedle the Bard would fetch about $100,000 at auction—in retrospect, about 40 times too low. The book, a one-of-a-kind piece of the Harry Potter canon hand-written and illustrated by JK Rowling herself, fetched $3.98 million for charity today, Reuters reports. “Christmas has come early for me,” said an ecstatic Rowling. More»

(NEWSER) - A new book by JK Rowling, patterned on one mentioned in the final Harry Potter installment, is set to be released tomorrow, Reuters reports. Profits from The Tales of Beedle the Bard will go to Rowling’s charity for Eastern European children. In addition to a global print run of 7.5 million, Amazon will release a collector’s edition facsimile of a handwritten, illustrated copy it bought at auction for $4 million. More»

Fight the monsters, she urges

(NEWSER) - Harry Potter birth mom JK Rowling yesterday urged Harvard graduates at their commencement to use their imaginations on more than wizards and muggles to envision—and create—a better world. She recalled the rewarding time she spent when she was younger working for prisoners of totalitarian regimes for Amnesty International. "Those who choose not to empathize" with people suffering "enable real monsters," she said. More»

At least 200 readers have reported printing errors in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

(NEWSER) - The seventh Harry Potter book sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours in print, but at least 200 fans of the teenage wizard have had less than magical experiences with the saga's finale. An irate group of readers on message boards at Amazon.com and eBay are already reporting printing errors and missing pages in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. More»

She wanted to kill one of the trio 'out of pure spite'

(NEWSER) - Talk about your unforgivable curses. JK Rowling has revealed that she came very close to tossing an Avada Kedavra Ron Weasley’s way somewhere in the middle of the Harry Potter series. “I did seriously consider killing Ron,” Rowling tells Daniel Radcliffe in an interview on the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2 DVD, which recently leaked online, according to the Guardian . More»