A rare collection of fairytales handwritten by J.K. Rowling as a gift to her "Harry Potter" publisher sold for nearly £370,000 at a UK auction. The copy of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" reached (439,700 euros) in the sale at Sotheby's auction house in London. The collection of fairytales was created within the "Harry Potter" series and helped the young wizard and his friends defeat his nemesis Lord Voldemort.
The copy auctioned this week was given in 2007 to publisher Barry Cunningham, who gave his backing to the first "Harry Potter" book and thus launched a global literary craze. "To Barry, the man who thought an overlong novel about a boy wizard in glasses might just sell... THANK YOU," Rowling wrote at the front of the book. The collection is bejewelled with semi-precious stones and features a sterling silver mounted skull on the cover.
Rowling wrote a total of six copies of the tales by hand, which were given to those most closely connected to the "Harry Potter" series, while a seventh book was written for sale at a charity auction.
