Rowling credits Potter fans with new book
Author JK Rowling revealed today that it was demand from Harry Potter fans which led to the publication of her latest book.
The writer spoke as she hosted a children’s tea party in Edinburgh to mark the launch of her new work, 'The Tales Of Beedle The Bard'.
Millions of copies of the book went on sale today to raise funds for Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), a charity co-founded by Rowling to help vulnerable children across Eastern Europe.
The tales were first mentioned in the seventh and final book in the Potter series – 'Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows'.
The stories were originally produced in a limited edition of just seven books, each hand-written and illustrated by Rowling herself.
She gave six of the volumes as gifts to people who helped make Harry Potter a global success, while the seventh hand-written copy was auctioned by CHLG last year and snapped up for £1.95m (€2.24m).
The author revealed today why she decided to make the book much more widely available.
“The idea actually came from you, by which I mean Harry Potter fans,” she told the 200 primary school children gathered at Edinburgh’s Parliament Hall.
“There was quite a lot of high feeling from Harry Potter fans that only someone who had £2m could afford to read the book.
“I thought ’fair point’, so I thought I’ll publish it and then the charity can have that money too.”
In the final Potter book, 'The Tales Of Beedle The Bard' was a volume of wizarding fairytales left to Hermione Granger by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. The tales played a crucial role in helping Harry to defeat Lord Voldemort, but only one of the five stories, 'The Tale Of The Three Brothers', was recounted in the book.
Rowling read a passage from the tales to her young audience today.
The children, all from local schools, also got to meet the Edinburgh-based author and were given a free copy of the book.
During a wide-ranging question-and-answer session, the writer spoke about her favourite authors as a child and her love of Christmas.
And she also revealed that she has had a fear of spiders ever since she was young.
Rowling told the crowd: “What’s funny is, as you probably know if you’ve read Harry Potter, I gave Ron that fear.
“He’s terrified of spiders, and Rupert Grint, who plays Ron in the films, is absolutely petrified of spiders. I feel so sorry for him because I kept putting Ron in these situations where he had to encounter them.”
