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Sotheby's To Auction Original JK Rowling Sketch and More in December
J.K. RowlingAs reported previously, author J.K. Rowling will be auctioning off a hand-written copy of her special "Tales of Beedle the Bard"book for charity via Sotheby's in London, England. The auction house has now added a few more items from J.K. Rowling that will be auctioned the same day, December 13, including this lovely original sketch by Jo. This pencil sketch was made originally by Jo for the for the BBC charity Children in Need in 1999. In the sketch, you can see Hagrid, Snape, Harry Ron Hermione, Professor McGonagall, along with Crookshanks, Dobby, the Sorting Hat, Fawkes, and a snitch. Estimates by Sothby's put this 10,000—15,000 GBP range.
Also due to be auctioned the same morning is an ink and watercolour drawing of "Harry Potter in Conversation with Buckbeak the Hippogriff" by artist Cliff Wright. This item by the artist who designed the jacket art to the UK Children's Editions of the Harry Potter novels, is "signed and dated in biro "Cliff Wright '02" in lower right corner, framed and glazed," with estimates of "3,000—5,000 GBP."
Finally available are autographed first edition copies of the earlier charity books written by Jo, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," and "Quidditch Through the Ages," along with a signed set of four Deluxe editions of the first four Harry Potter novels.
A reminder that Sotheby's does have a special deluxe 48 page catalogue available for the "Tales of the Beedle the Bard" book containing a message from Jo and images from the book, where proceeds from the sale will benefit The Children's Voice charity. The actual handwritten book will soon go on display in London starting Sunday, December 9 at 10:00am before the actual auction on December 13, and this viewing is open to the public.
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I wish I could go see the book in london at least.. too bad I live “across the pond” in the US!! sigh I want that book!! :)
OOOOHHH! She’s a realy good artist! Oh! And look, it’s the real Harry and Ron and hermy! Look at hermy’s hair, how big it’s! Ah, damn the filmmakers!
Ah, well, this’s like a dream come true for me, I always wished she’d show us how her characters really look like, now I partially had my wish! I hope she’d do more of that, colored sketches, for them, by different age stages! Wow, I think I’m greedy, lol! I really wish they’d have used her to illustrate the HP books, all versions, UK (adults, kids), US.. all! Eh, maybe we can wish for a new edition of the HP books set with JK’s drawing? I’d buy them no matter how much they cost! ;-)
Wouldn’t it be nice if they produced the book en masse, but cheaper, with some turquoise and quarts on the cover… Or if they just printed them, anything. I don’t know if I’ll get Sotheby’s catalogue. It seems to have none of the stories, just pictures.
the characters almost exactly turned out how she drew them..
except snape doesn’t have the short beard ‘just-escaped-outta-azkaban’ look and hermione doesn’t have the weird teeth..
I’m not going to get all excited about this. It’s something for the rich, not the everyday fans. You can own a piece of Potter, but it’ll cost ya’. Elitism is alive and well.
Many of us posting on this topic in the past rather thought that there would be a mass release of Tales sometime, with the proceeds going to a charity like Comic Relief UK again. We’ll just need to be patient.
Given all the boxes of materials that JKR supposedly has, I’m sure we’ll all have items to add to our collections in the years ahead.
I could see Beedle the Bard being part of the charity “encyclopedia”, as it would be a rather short book otherwise (the Sotheby’s website says circa 5,500 words, which is maybe 12 pages (assuming a very rough estimate of the number of words on a UK DH page).
The Jo-drawn trio here really is the TRUE trio! You never see them depicted this way ever, despite it being true to the books. If there’s ever another HP adaptation (perhaps a huge BBC series, or HBO) I hope they go closer to the books with the characters, also in the general tone of the series. It will be many years before a TV series like this would happen though. And if it was ever attempted many parts would have to be cut or scaled down due to the limitations of TV! 6 hour-long episodes per book would be good.
I’m loving the developments from this auction. I really want to buy the catalogue and I printed out the sketch as soon as I saw it and I’ve already speant about 10 mins just looking at all the little details!
“Elitism is alive and well”
So is trolling, it seems.
Yeah, I wondered how long it would take for the trolls to show up…
Look at Snape’s line-of-sight in the drawing. His eyes are focused on the top of Harry’s head. Like lasers. Scary.
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Yeah I know… I was surprised how talented she is at drawing too.