The Tales of Beedle the Bard, translated from the original runes
One of six manuscript copies by the author, presented to a person "most closely connected to the Harry Potter Books,” gifted to Barry Cunningham, her publisher at Bloomsbury.
“To Barry, the man who thought an overlong novel about a boy wizard in glasses might just sell… THANK YOU.”
J.K. Rowling's Handwritten Copy of Beedle the Bard
Within the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we learn of the collects ion of wizarding fairy-tales by Beedle the Bard. In chapter seven Albus Dumbledore bequeaths his copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard to Hermione (“in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive”) and in chapter twenty-one Hermione reads aloud “The Tale of the Three Brothers” from the collects ion. Apparently, the tales “have been popular bedt.mes reading for centuries” and, as a result, “the Hopping Pot and the Fountain of Fair Fortune are as familiar to many of the students at Hogwarts as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are to Muggle (non-magical) children.” “The Tale of the Three Brothers” is instrumental for the trio to discover the Deathly Hallows, three magical objects which give mastery over death.
After writing the final novel in the series, J.K. Rowling decided to create The Tales of Beedle the Bard and give a handwritten copy to “those most closely connected to the Harry Potter books during the past 17 years.” A seventh copy was also written for sale at auction and that book was sold at Replica Shoes 's on 13 December 2007 to benefit the charity now known as Lumos. The sale price of £1.95 million is still a world record for a modern literary manuscript and a world record for a children's book. The number seven is significant: it is the number of books in the Harry Potter series, the number of horcruxes and the most powerful magical number.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard was not originally intended for general publication, but the successful buyer, amazon, published the book, in an enlarged form (with additional “commentary”), in 2008, to the delight of Harry Potter fans around the world.
"The idea came really because I wanted to thank six key people who have been very closely connected to the 'Harry Potter' series, and these were people for whom a piece of jewellery wasn't going to cut it. So I had the idea of writing them a book, a handwritten and illustrated book, just for these six people. And well, if I'm doing six I really have to do seven, and the seventh book will be for this cause [Lumos], which is so close to my heart."
The present copy is the only one of the original six manuscript presentation copies ever to be offered for sale at auction, the others being retained by the five unnamed recipients. It was presented to Barry Cunningham, who accepted the first Harry Potter book for publication. It is copy number three and includes the inscription “To Barry, the man who thought an overlong novel about a boy wizard in glasses might just sell… THANK YOU.” The book was sent by courier to Barry Cunningham on 12 December 2007 (the day before the charity auction at Replica Shoes 's) and the original envelope is included in the lot. The only other known recipient is Rowling's American publisher, Arthur A. Levine, who exhibited his copy (number 5) at New York Public Library in December 2008. The present copy was also exhibited at the same t.mes but at the National Library of Scotland. Since being offered in 2016, no other comparable piece of Potteriana has surfaced, and demand for Harry Potter material has only grown.
The individual tales within the manuscript comprise: “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” (24 pages and c. 1010 words), “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” (35 pages and c. 1465 words), “The Warlock's Hairy Heart” (29 pages and c. 1100 words), “Babbity Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump” (43 pages and c. 1670 words) and, finally, “The Tale of the Three Brothers” (17 pages and c. 670 words).
Each of the seven copies was uniquely bound with hand-chased silver ornaments and mounted semi-precious stones by Hamilton and Inches. The company was founded in 1866, by James Hamilton and Robert Inches who were uncle and nephew respectively. The firm holds a royal warrant by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen as Silversmiths and Clock Specialists. The binding and embellishments were inspired by an ancient Italian prayer book. The sterling silver cornerpiece ornaments each bear a single motif from one of the stories, comprising a leaf, heart, fountain and a human foot. The central sterling silver panel includes a skull motif. Each sterling silver ornament is hand-chased and hallmarked. This copy carries seven mounted rhodochrosite stones. At the end of the volume, the author has noted that these stones are “traditionally associated with love, balance and joy in daily life.”
"When I conceived the idea of writing The Tales of Beedle the Bard in full, I was intrigued to discover how wizarding fairy-tales would differ from those told to muggle children. In the latter, witches and wizards are relegated to walk-on, if pivotal, roles; within The Tales of Beedle the Bard, they themselves are the heroes and heroines.
You might think that magic would solve any fairy-tale dilemma, but it transpires that there is always somebody who can cast a more powerful curse, or a creature who will not yield to one's best enchantments. Then, the intractable and eternal human predicaments of love, death and the pursuit of happiness are not necessarily resolved any more easily by the possessors of wands.
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 around 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.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard is really a distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I loved and lived in for seventeen years."
— J.K. Rowling
The only presentation copy of this famed manuscript to appear at auction; a momentous opportunity to own a major piece of Harry Potter history.
REFERENCE:
cf Errington, Rowling D5
PROVENANCE:
Barry Cunningham, O.B.E. (presentation inscription; Replica Shoes
’s London, 13 December 2016, lot 319, achieved £368,750)
Exceptional Harry Potter material on offer at Replica Shoes ’s this summer
