Is my Harry Potter book valuable? How to tell if your copy is a first edition

Is my Harry Potter book valuable? How to tell if your copy is a first edition

This comprehensive article will help you establish whether you have a first edition Harry Potter on your hands. If you do have a first edition and are interested in selling it, please contact us on our Sell To Us page.

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide, and first editions of her books have very quickly become collectable. By far the most valuable book in the series is the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published on 30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London.

But to have any real collectable value, it has to be a copy of the first edition, first impression (also known as the first printing). This means the very first batch of books off the press, of which there were only a few thousand.  Reprints of Philosopher’s Stone (and even first editions of the later books in the series) have much lower values, in part because so many more of them were printed.

Harry Potter first edition, softcover issue

First, what do the books look like? The first printing was bound in two different ways. The rarest is the hardback issue, with a cover of laminated boards. Only 500 copies were bound this way, and 300 of those were sent to libraries. Because library books receive so much wear and tear we are left with only 200 copies in potentially fine collectable condition, and these rarely appear on the market. The other binding was a regular paperback of which a few thousand copies were produced for sale.

Next , how do you tell whether your copy, which may look very similar to the one pictured above, is really a valuable first edition?

To be a first edition, in either hard or soft cover, there are four very important issue points, all of which your book must have:

1. The publisher must be listed as Bloomsbury at the bottom of the title page. See photo below:

2. The latest date listed in the copyright information must be 1997.

3. The print line on the copyright page must read “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”, ten down to one, exactly. The lowest figure in the print line indicates the printing. (For instance, if your copy has “20 19 18 17”, it’s a less valuable seventeenth printing.)

First edition number line.

You may have been told that you have a first printing if the copyright is in the name of “Joanne Rowling”, but that’s not true. All early printings of this title have the same copyright statement.

This is what the whole back of the title page should look like:

Back of title page in the first edition of Harry Potter.

4. On page 53, in the list of school supplies that Harry receives from Hogwarts, the item “1 wand” must appear twice, once at the beginning and once at the end. This mistake was corrected in the second printing of the book (although it re-appeared in some later printings).

Mistake on page 53.

5. On the back cover there is a missing “o” in “Philospher’s Stone”.

Philosopher’s spelled as Philospher’s with the missing “o”.

If your book meets all these requirements then congratulations, you have a first edition! Depending on the binding and condition, it could be worth anywhere from many hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds.  If you’re interested in selling it, or would like to have a custom protective box made to house it, then please contact us. To see the Harry Potter books we currently have for sale please click here.

Though both the paperback and hardback first editions of the Philosopher’s Stone are of value, this is not the case with the other books in the series. For the other titles, it is only the first hardback edition with the dust jacket that have collectable value. If you have a copy of one of these titles that meets all these requirements below, and that you would like to sell, please contact us.

Chamber of Secrets must have been published in 1998 by Bloomsbury with no mention of subsequent edition, publisher, or later date on the copyright page, and have a printing number sequence of “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”.

Chamber of Secrets first edition copyright page

Prisoner of Azkaban must have been published in 1999 by Bloomsbury with no mention of subsequent edition, publisher, or later date on the copyright page, and have a printing number sequence of “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”. The most valuable copies are the first issue, which must have “Joanne Rowling” as the author instead of “J. K. Rowling” on the copyright page, and a dropped line of text on page 7.

 

The last four titles in the series, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows, must have the words “First Edition” printed on the copyright page. The print run for the first edition of all of the last four titles was very large, and as a result, even first edition copies in the dust jackets in fine condition are fairly commonly found, and not presently of high value. We are currently interested in acquiring signed copies only of these titles.

Goblet of Fire copyright page

Browse all currently-available Harry Potter books here.

Harry Potter and the Literary Allusions: J. K. Rowling’s Influences

Harry Potter and the Literary Allusions: J. K. Rowling’s Influences

For those of us who treasure vivid childhood recollections of queuing up at midnight on an almost-yearly basis to receive the next instalment of the Harry Potter series into our eager hands, the fact that The Philosopher’s Stone turns twenty this year is an astonishing (and slightly alarming) fact.

One of the joys of being a Potter fan – of being a reader in general, in fact – is the sensation of being admitted into a shared world of allusion, symbols and stories, in which you recognise in the everyday both the impetus and the influence of the books that you cherish.  Most people who have grown up with Rowling’s books must be familiar with the pleasant flash of recognition the first time you come across a character’s name or a magic word in an entirely different context; the sense of connection and discovery when you first learn that mandrakes are real plants with roots shaped like little people and their own rich folkloric history, or that Remus (the name of Harry’s werewolf teacher) was one of the twin brothers adopted by a she-wolf in Roman mythology.

As with most good literature, the Potter books are a patchwork of borrowed, repurposed and, most importantly, interconnected ideas, drawn from the deep well of storytelling that so vitally taps into human experience across the centuries. While some have chosen to see Rowling’s craft as an infringement (several legal cases have been brought against her for alleged plagiarism) others have recognised that a writer’s own personal reading will often have a substantial influence over their work (the author, Eva Ibbotson, whose book The Secret of Platform 13 has been suggested as a possible source for Rowling’s idea of a magical portal in Kings Cross Station, has said she would ‘like to shake by the hand.’ ‘I think we all borrow from each other as writers’)

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Philosopher’s Stone, we have put together a selection of books which Rowling has referred to as those which had an impact on the genesis of Harry and his adventures. We like to think some of these volumes wouldn’t look out of place on the shelves in Dumbledore’s office or the Hogwarts library.

 

(NONESUCH PRESS.) HOMER. The Iliad, 1931 – BOOK SOLD

HOMER. The Iliad, 1931

Rowling has said that she was extremely moved by her reading of the Iliad at the age of nineteen, particularly the scene in which Hector returns to battle to rescue Patroclus’ body. In The Goblet of Fire, Harry returns Cedric’s body to Hogwarts after the two are lured away to a remote graveyard by Voldemort during the Triwizard Tournament, an incident she has said was directly influenced by Homer. “The idea of the desecration of a body, a very ancient idea… I was thinking of that when Harry saved Cedric’s body.”

 

(FRASER, William Alexander.) , 1867 – BOOK SOLD

Presentation Bible to Capt. W. A. Fraser from the Missionaries on the Loyalty Islands and New Hebrides

The biblical allusions in Harry Potter, particularly the last book, have been noted by many. The inscription on Dumbledore’s family tomb, “Where your treasure is, your heart will be also”, is from Matthew 6:21, while the tombstone of Harry’s parents bears the quotation “And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” from 1 Corinthians, which also informs one of the major themes of the book. Harry’s death and later resurrection have obvious resonances with the life of Jesus.  “They’re very British books”, Rowling has said, “So on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones, I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones at Godric’s Hollow, they (…) almost epitomize the whole series.”

 

AESCHYLUS. The Tragedies. 1779 – BOOK SOLD

AESCHYLUS. The Tragedies. 1779

Rowling puzzled many readers by choosing a long quotation from ‘The Libation Bearers’ as an epigraph to The Deathly Hallows.

Rowling has said that this, along with the second epigraph from Quaker leader William Penn, “cued up the ending perfectly”. In the passage from the Iliad, Electra and her brother Orestes plans to exact revenge for the murder of their father and ask the ‘dark gods’ of the underworld for strength in achieving their task. Electra and Orestes are caught in a dilemma as their father’s murderer was their mother, Clytemnestra. To murder her in turn would be to duplicate her sin of shedding kindred blood. As Harry shares blood with Lord Voldemort – blood, moreover, that carries the protection given when his mother died to save him – his knowledge that he must defeat Voldemort is complicated by a kinship tie with him. It is this connection which also tethers Harry to life and allows him to return after Voldemort has performed the killing curse on him in the climax of the final book. This passage therefore speaks to the complexities of blood relationships in Rowling’s universe, a theme that is prevalent throughout the seven books.

 

CHAUCER, Geoffrey. The Workes of Geffray Chaucer newly printed,

‘The Pardoner’s Tale’ from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is recognisably the source for the ‘Tale of the Three Brothers’, the story which reveals the legend of the Deathly Hallows to Harry, Ron and Hermione. In Chaucer’s story, three brothers set out to kill Death in vengeance for the death of a friend. They encounter an old man who tells them that they will find Death under an oak tree. When they get there, however, they discover not Death but a large cache of gold coins. Forgetting their quest, each falls to plotting to kill the others, so that he may take the gold for himself. By the end of the tale, their greed has caused the death of all three brothers, illustrating the biblical theme of the Pardoner’s tale, “Radix malorum est cupiditas” (“Greed is the root of evils” 1 Timothy 6.10). ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’ appears in what might be said to be wizarding world’s equivalent of the Canterbury Tales, The Tales of Beedle the Bard and is retold in Deathly Hallows by Xenophilius Lovegood. Three brothers defy death by conjuring a bridge to cross a dangerous river in safety. Death appears to the brothers and gives each of them a gift, apparently in recognition of their skill at evading him. The first two brothers die as a result of the misuse of Death’s gifts but the third (the recipient of the invisibility cloak eventually inherited by Harry) uses it wisely and dies peacefully as an old man.

 

SHAKESPEARE, William. The Works. 1866. (BOOK SOLD)

J. K. Rowling has talked in interviews about the influence of Macbeth on the prophecy about Harry and Voldemort which states that “neither can live while the other survives”. “I absolutely adore Macbeth. It is possibly my favourite Shakespeare play” she has said. “And that’s the question isn’t it? If Macbeth hadn’t met the witches, would he have killed Duncan? Would any of it have happened? Is it fated or did he make it happen? I believe he made it happen.” This idea of free will despite the apparent determinations of fate is emphasised to Harry by Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince:

You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything! But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal. . . . In other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy!

 

LEWIS, C. S. [The Chronicles of Narnia:] The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician’s Nephew; The Last Battle. 1950-1956. (BOOK SOLD)

Rowling has said that Lewis’ books were childhood favourites and an inspiration when writing fantasy novels for children.  “I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in King’s Cross Station – it dissolves and he’s on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there’s the train for Hogwarts.” A connection can also be made between Harry’s obnoxious, bullying cousin Dudley Dursely and Eustace Scrub, who is the cousin of the Pevensie children who appear in several Narnia novels. Both Dudley and Eustace eventually find some form of redemption in the course of each narrative.

 

AUSTEN, Jane. [The Novels:] Pride & Prejudice; Sense & Sensibility; Mansfield Park; Emma; Northanger Abbey; Persuasion. 1907–09 – BOOK SOLD

AUSTEN, Jane. [The Novels:] Pride & Prejudice; Sense & Sensibility; Mansfield Park; Emma; Northanger Abbey; Persuasion. 1907–09

While the parallels between Austen’s portraits of nineteenth century manners and society and a story about a school for young witches and wizards might not immediately jump off the page, Rowling has spoken of Austen as one of her chief influences in the craft of storytelling. The Potter series is known for its surprising turns and twist endings, and Rowling has stated that “I have never set up a surprise ending in a Harry Potter book without knowing I can never, and will never, do it anywhere near as well as Austen did in Emma.”

 

Dorothy L. Sayers

Despite the overarching theme of good versus evil, each individual Potter story often feels like its own self-contained mystery novel, with suspects, evidence and an eventual payoff forming integral parts of the structure. Acknowledging this fact, Rowling has referred to Sayers as “the queen of the genre”. She has talked about the influence of Sayers on Harry Potter with regards to romance in the novels:

There’s a theory – this applies to detective novels, and then Harry, which is not really a detective novel, but it feels like one sometimes – that you should not have romantic intrigue in a detective book. Dorothy L. Sayers, who is queen of the genre said — and then broke her own rule, but said — that there is no place for romance in a detective story except that it can be useful to camouflage other people’s motives. That’s true; it is a very useful trick. I’ve used that on Percy and I’ve used that to a degree on Tonks in this book, as a red herring. But having said that, I disagree inasmuch as mine are very character-driven books, and it’s so important, therefore, that we see these characters fall in love, which is a necessary part of life.


We’re also celebrating the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter with a curated selection of signed first and special editions of Harry Potter, which you can see here.

You can read our blog on how to identify whether your Philosopher’s Stone is a first edition here, or watch this video.

 

 

Mad, bad and dangerous to read: banned books

Mad, bad and dangerous to read: banned books

Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Dreams, 1896. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna

Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Dreams, 1896. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna

In The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Lord Henry refutes Dorian’s claim that the infamous ‘yellow book’ he read in his youth was responsible for the onset of his moral dissolution, on the grounds that books can be inherently neither moral not immoral. ‘The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame’ says Henry.

This year’s Banned Books Week has brought the focus to the censorship of diverse reading materials, particularly of recent publications intended for children or young adults. The attempt to suppress books deemed to be inappropriate for one reason or another is, of course, by no means a recent phenomenon.

To mark Banned Books Week, we’ve delved into the shady (and sometimes not so shady) corners of our collection and dusted off some of history’s controversial printed works. While graphic content remains the favourite and most prevalent reasons for some books being classified as thoroughly objectionable, other, more obscure justifications have sometimes been cited for the suppression of a title.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter

Possibly some of the most innocent-seeming and beloved works of children’s fiction, The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny were banned in London schools in 1985 by the Inner London Education Authority for their portrayal of exclusively ‘middle-class rabbits’.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White and Animal Farm by George Orwell

George Orwell. Animal Farm. A Fairy Story. 1995. Illustration by Ralph Steadman, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of Animal Farm

George Orwell. Animal Farm. A Fairy Story. 1995. Illustration by Ralph Steadman, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of Animal Farm

Dwelling for a moment longer on the theme of anthropomorphised animals, these three novels were all, at some point, deemed exceptionable for their treatment of non-human characters. In 1932, the governor of Hunan Province in China stated that it was ‘disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level’ in justification for banning Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Similarly, a group of parents at a school in Kansas objected to Charlotte’s Web on the ground that ‘humans are the highest level of God’s creation and are the only creatures that can communicate vocally. Showing lower life forms with human abilities is sacrilegious and disrespectful to God’. Less surprising, perhaps, are the numerous objections to Orwell’s Animal Farm, a thinly veiled allegory for the formation of the Soviet Union, in which his animal characters can be read as analogues for prominent political figures of the day. Fears that the book would harm relations between the UK and the USSR led to Orwell’s initial inability to find a publisher for it. Upon publication in 1945 it was immediately banned in the USSR, China and Cuba for its criticism of Communism. It was also banned more recently in the United Arab Emirates; the depiction of a talking pig was deemed offensive.

The Canturbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

illustration of The Knight’s Tale by Edward Burne-Jones from the Kelmscott Chaucer, 1896.

Illustration of The Knight’s Tale by Edward Burne-Jones from the Kelmscott Chaucer, 1896.

Everyone’s favourite category, books banned for naughtiness outnumber all others, and include some cherished favourites and important literary works: the usual suspects include Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Madame Bovary and Ulysses.

Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’, though certainly not lacking in naughtiness, is usually considered more important as a landmark of Middle English literature. However, its significance in the literary canon didn’t prevent it from being all but banned under the Comstock Law in the US in 1873, which prohibited the sending of offensive material by mail or over state lines.

Radclyffe Hall. The Well of Loneliness. 1928

Radclyffe Hall. The Well of Loneliness. 1928

Less well known currently, perhaps, is Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness, one of the first British novels to deal openly with the subject of lesbianism. While it initially received cautiously positive reviews, The Sunday Express soon began a campaign calling for the novel’s suppression, the paper’s editor stating that he ‘ would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel. Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.’ The controversy prompted obscenity trials in both the UK and the US, and it was withdrawn from circulation in the UK until its republication in 1949.

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

John Gould’s illustration of Darwin’s Rhea, 1841 Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species. 1860 (Second edition)

John Gould’s illustration of Darwin’s Rhea, 1841
Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species. 1860 (Second edition)

The book which sets out Darwin’s theory of theory of evolution by natural selection was judged to have contravened Christian beliefs and created a storm of controversy in Victorian England. It was banned from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge – Darwin’s own college – immediately after its publication. The state of Tennessee banned the book from 1925 to 1967, and it was banned in Yugoslavia in 1935 and Greece in 1937.

Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling

hbp-uk-kids-jacket-art-768x685

The controversy surrounding the Harry Potter series persisted throughout the years of its publication and beyond. Despite their immense popularity, critical and commercial acclaim, and having been credited with inspiring a generation of readers, books in the Harry Potter series have appeared high on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books since The Philosopher’s Stone appeared in 1997, and are now the most challenged books of the 21st century. Objections largely centre on the novels’ portrayal of magic, citing a promotion of occultism, paganism, Satanism and witchcraft as legitimate reasons for their suppression. Others have cited concerns over violent and dangerous incidents in the plots as potentially distressing to children.