The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Last year, J.K. Rowling auctioned off one of the seven hand-written/illustrated copies of the children's fairy tales (as seen in Deathly Hallows), The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Click here to view). The book, auctioned at Sotheby's in London, fetched a meager $4 million. The purchaser? Amazon.com.

Mrs. Rowling donated the full proceeds to The Children's Voice campaign, "a charity she co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe," Amazon.com says.

Recently, it has been announced (as maybe some of you have heard) that The Tales of Beedle the Bard is being published for commercial sale. That said, the entire net proceeds from the sales of these books, which includes a Uk edition, US edition, and collector's edition, will again be donated to The Children's High Level Group.


The cost is quite affordable, except if you want to be one of only 100,000 to own the collector's edition, which will set you back a hefty $100. The collector's edition, on top of being a limited printing, is bound and jewel-encrusted so that it resembles as closely as possible the originals. That will certainly help ease its considerable cost.

In total, the proceeds are estimated to be somewhere near $8 million in net proceeds, all gifted to the children's charity, and certainly a fine gift from a most undoubtedly generous woman.

I myself have already purchased my copy, though I admit I did buy the UK edition.