'Tales of Beedle the Bard' Being Released to the Public!

As any serious Harry Potter reader knows, July 31 was the boy wizard's birthday. To celebrate - and hot on the heels of the just-released trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling is making an extremely rare Potter work available to us – The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be available to the public this December in both a standard edition and a collector’s edition.

As you know, Jo originally handwrote and illustrated the Tales of Beedle the Bard as an extremely limited-edition set. When one of the only seven copies made was auctioned off for charity last December, Amazon made the winning bid of about $4 million. Though one of the conditions of auction was that the winner could not publish or reproduce the work, Amazon found a way to convince Jo to change her mind — by donating all net proceeds to a charity of her choice.

Of the release, Jo said, “There was understandable disappointment among Harry Potter fans when only one copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was offered to the public last December. I am therefore delighted to announce that, thanks to the generous support of Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Amazon, and with the blessing of all the wonderful people who own the other six original books, The Tales of Beedle the Bard will now be widely available to all Harry Potter fans."

The new edition of the wizard fairy tales will include five stories — "Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump," "The Tale of the Three Brothers," "The Fountain of Fair Fortune," "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" and "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" — as "translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger," Jo said. The editions will also have commentary on each fairy tale as "notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by generous permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters' Archive…Dumbledore's commentary on the 'Tales,' which was discovered among his papers after his death, includes some historical notes, personal reminiscences, and insights into that most mysterious branch of magic: wandlore," Jo notes. As a finishing touch, Jo has agree to write the book’s introduction.

A collector's edition from Amazon — limited to 100,000 copies (!!!)— will aim to replicate the look and feel of the original handmade copies, and will include 10 new illustrations by Jo that are not in the original or standard editions.

So, act fast muggles! If you are one of those dedicated Harry Potter fans, reserve your copy of the collector's edition today!