Greetings from London, where today I had the great pleasure of visiting Sotheby’s and being granted a private audience with one of the precious seven copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The charity copy was brought out to me wrapped in soft purple cloth, nestled in a special box from its jeweler.
The book is set for auction on December 13 at Sotheby’s, and Sotheby’s has printed a special catalog featuring it. Buying the catalog supports The Children’s Voice Charity; Leaky now has four extra copies of this book and will be conducting a special, short drive so that fans who want to support the effort, but can’t buy Beedle the Bard, can do so. More information on that will be available shortly.
The book is about 4×6”, and has the look of a diary. A Scottish jeweler has hand-wrought the silver pieces that adorn the item’s front; the four corners each have a tiny engraving of one of four illustrations: a foot, a fountain, a tree stump and a heart, representing each of four of the stories . The middle piece, the large silver skull, represents The Tale of the Three Brothers, the fifth story and the one featured in Deathly Hallows. A small silver clasp closes the book.
Each edition is also set with different types of stones; the charity edition is the moonstone one, which, Jo notes, is associated with “mothers, lovers and the power of dreams.” The gems look clear or bluish depending on the angle; as has been seen in pictures, a stone sits in each of the skull’s eye sockets and on each corner. The Deathly Hallows sign is not on the skull.
Inside the book, the pages are rough-edged and impressively illustrated; anyone who has seen Jo’s artistic handiwork knows her precise and playful style, and that’s present throughout. Where she makes personal comments, the pages are bordered in flowers and other flourishes. One page has a stone arch at the top, another has a shoe at the bottom – which I’ve been told play important roles in respective stories. The chapter illustrations are particularly beautiful; my favorites were the Fountain of Fair Fortunes, which looks as though it’s overflowing with something wispy and intangible, and the hairy heart, because, frankly, it was gross.
Some left-side blank pages feature a wand with all sorts of glitterati clouding its tip, as though in the middle of a particularly showy spell. The inscription thanks the would-be author and wishes him/her fair fortune. Once in awhile there’s a handwriting tick, such as in Jo capitalizing a word after first writing it lowercase, that makes the book yet more valuable.
I can now say with authority that the hardest thing to do in the presence of this unique item is to hold yourself back from drooling on it. I even experienced a momentary urge to grab it, finagle an impressive escape from Sotheby’s security, and disappear forever with the stories tucked under my arm. Of course, I wasn’t able to read the whole thing, though I easily would have sat and done so. What I did see gave the impression that these are, as expected, simple, elegant, playful stories that may not tell us more about Harry’s world but do inform the moral laws governing it.
The minority opinion I’ve seen on this book, which takes Jo to task for not making these stories immediately available to the public, is somewhat upsetting; this is a magnificent and special item that she didn’t have to create at all, nevermind offer up for charity. It will only raise more for charity since the contents are unknown. And the idea that the other six books will be in the hands of those who have held Harry most dear for the longest time is especially endearing.
The special Sotheby’s catalog about the book offers a new blurb from J.K. Rowling about the work, which says:
“So these wizarding fairy-tales have much in common with their muggle counterparts: they exist to express human hopes and fears, and to teach a lesson or two. There are, however, a few important differences: witches tend to save themselves, rather than waiting for a man to do it, and young wizards are warned, not against the dangers and temptations of the outside world, but of their own magical powers.”
You can buy the catalog here; proceeds benefit Children’s Voice. Again, Leaky has several copies and will be giving details about a special drive shortly.
The item is due to be auctioned on December 13, and as previously reported, will on display be at the New York’s Sotheby’s on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the coming week. While available, children who visit it will receive badges that say that they have been among the lucky few to see it.
M Jones, I don’t get that either. We also have things striking themselves out, and it’s weird.
I’m sorry if you feel I slapped. I only butt in around here when I feel the insulting reaches a level at which we dare to tip into the territory embraced by … some other places.
So, we’re just back to agreeing to disagree. :) It just comes down to a choice, then, I guess, between believing what she’s doing isn’t mean spirited and believing what she’s doing is. And yes, we welcome and encourage the contrary points, as long as they don’t express themselves in unalloyed hatred and insults.
Budb, I’m back now, thanks for asking. I got back just in time for Thanksgiving. Beedle isn’t why I traveled over there but it certainly was a nice surprise!
Then welcome back, Melissa! Tho…I must admit …I had hopes you had secretly gone north to Scotland to interview JKR, resulting in an outpouring of details for us to drool about…and possibly collect your copy of the Tales as well ;-)
I think the weird formatting is due to ordinary characters being interpreted as typesetting commands. From what I have seen I believe a comment between a pair of dashes causes strike through, maybe like this .
All great authors have works that they only publish to themselves or to their friends. Heck there are authors whose greatest works were never made available to the public. Authors are not by any means obligated to publish all of their works.
The people who attack Jo about this are probably people who already dislike Jo in the first place. Whether its about the gay thing, or the lexicon thing or whatever grudge they may have on Jo.
As a gift, this is probably one of the best an author can give so props to her. It probably grates some fans that some rich kid or book collector is probably gonna get a copy.
M Jones, I really am baffled, and I am being sincere. I just don’t understand your position. you’re too smart to be just pouting, and too close an observer of the HP world (i have seen and read your posts on other topics, after all) to be visiting just to be annoying.
budb -You are in danger of allowing my ego to run riot when you ask me for a direct opinion !
But seriously -I am glad that you realise that I LOVE both the books and indeed, Leaky, although I feel I have detetced a slight but still perceptable change in the tone of Leaky since -as I have saidbefore, the Emerson/Melissa interview. Now, I could be wrong about this, but has inceeased personal access to JKR provoked a slight decrease in editorial independence ?
But let me tell you what I am VERY angry about- The films. Oh yes, I enjoy them -which Potter fan can say that they don’t ? But they could have been so much better if they had cared enough to follow the example set by Peter Jackson and New Line with their Lord Of the Rings project.
There -the three films were released in consecutive Decembers mainly due to a continuous principle photography shoot. Each Easter -a DVD of the cinema release was released -Then -glory of glories -came the extnded DVDs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These were mainly for di-hard fans but they were incredibly successful financially for New Line.
The earliest Potter films could obviously not do this due to the ages of the principles -but why on earth can’t the last three films have been done like that !! The last two books could -and should be 3 films.
In any event extended DVDs -about which NOTHING official has ever been said could have been produced -if they really cared and respected the source product.
I believe they (Warners) do not care about the books and the fans -as much as they should. They see them as “children’s books” -hence -lets get a quick buck…...
Well, M Jones, i’ve gone off on rants on the films and WB as a corporate entity at times as well, usually in threads concerning the films tho. I too keep hoping for a secret extended version but, we’ll see. I am already saddened by the thought that its highly unlikely i’ll be around to see the re-make of the HP films in 20-30 yrs…tho Radcliffe might want to consider palying Sanpe as the real juicey role? But, that fun discussion belongs elsewhere, apologies for going off topic folks….
As for your view that there’s a shift in Leaky, we’ll just agree to disagree as well. as i see the situation, Leaky has in recent months been put into a position where a very scrupulous silence has to be maintained on specific topics that have legal implications. so, we get the announcements of those events as the unfold, and probably are informed faster and better than most fans—but Leaky and its individual staff members are acting with absolute appropriateness in remaining silent. Again tho, apologies to others for wandering off topic.
If i may narrow my question, do you think that the tales will appear, sooner, later, or not at all? that really is what i was trying to grasp, your position on Tales…
The Tales ?...of course they will be published widely. . I would like to be as certain of winning the lottery ! And to be fair to her (shock, horror!) , I think JKR will insist that they are published so that he real fans can get access.
Just to, uh, make a quick comment about editorial independence… “access to JKR” was really that one interview, you know? It’s not like we call each other up and have tea weekly. Things proceeded as usual before and after. We had now spent some time together. If there is a fault line there, it’s in that we as people are less quick to judge those with whom we’ve spent time and liked. I think that’s true of most people. So if that time meant that we have held our hand for just a few seconds longer than most other people would, well, then, we’ll own to that fully because it’s caution offered in good faith. We’ve never hid anything integral to a story, or failed to ask the question that’s most important to fans in favor of the one that would make us most favored to the “powers that be.” And if you want proof of that, you only need to look back on the Emma Watson photoshopping matter. We spoke rather candidly against WB then, and tomorrow if faced with an issue that gave us the same pause, would do the same. So long as we weren’t interfering in a legal matter.
So, yah. I see what you’re saying, M Jones, but it’s an increased sense of caution and respect that happens whenever you start to know anyone. It’s human, it’s what we do. But whatever information we had or did not have, about any issue, is the same before the interview as after. If forced to choose, I’d be very happy to be erring on the more cautious and respectful side instead of the other. :)
I am just taking a guess here, but it would make most sense to me that the seven books are going to:
1) Neil
2) Jessica
3) David
4) Kenzie
5) Di
6) Anne
7) Us (“You”) – the auctioned book
These are the same people that Jo dedicated “Deathly Hallows” to. It seems that although she is evil in no way that her heart has been divided in seven ways, just as Voldemort supposed his soul to be.
What I REALLY dfo not understand is why sometimes, the forum typeset seems to ave a mind of its own. The minute font above actually said -
” There was something in my original post (the controversial one) about which I am rather ashamed and I deserved the slap I received from Melissa….”
I then returned to my normal combative self !