First edition of Harry Potter, author’s presentation copy, with literary association

ROWLING, J.K.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
London: Bloomsbury, 1997

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, PAPERBACK ISSUE. AUTHOR’S PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED “to Davey and Tommy — great to meet you at last! J.K. Rowling.” The recipients’ mother is Jenny Brown, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Brown served as Director of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) from 1996 through 2002.

We trace only four other inscribed first printings with documented provenance in auction records. Of those, just two—including this copy—bear a direct literary association.

$45,000.00

In 1996 Jenny Brown, the newly appointed Director of Literature at the SAC, led an initiative to establish a new program to support authors of children’s literature. The first applicant to the award for children’s literature was J K Rowling. In 1996 Rowling received an £8000 grant from the SAC. Rowling later told the chairman of the Arts Council, Magnus Linklater, that the award “transformed her life… by allowing her to pay for childcare during the whole of a year, it had allowed her to complete the second Harry Potter volume at a time when she had no prospects of success for the first” (Magnus Linklater, Prospect Magazine).

Other known inscribed first printings with documented provenance:

  • A copy inscribed to Bryony Evens, office manager at the Christopher Little literary agency (Bonhams, 2020)

  • A copy inscribed to a personal friend from Rowling’s daughter’s Edinburgh daycare (Bonhams, 2017)

  • A copy inscribed to Rowling’s father (Sotheby’s, 2003)

  • A copy inscribed to the first journalist to interview Rowling (Heritage, 2010)

Bloomsbury, 1997. Octavo, publisher’s pictorial wrappers (misspelling “Philospher”), paperback issue (number sequence from 10 to 1); faint trace of damp at lower margin of opening and final few leaves, typical paper toning, few creases and abrasions, laminate separated in places with minor loss. A very good example of a book almost never encountered inscribed—with exceptional provenance and literary significance.