UBC library lands rare U.K. edition of Harry Potter’s first adventure
Librarians at the University of B.C. have waved their magic wand and conjured up a rare U.K. first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
But there was a fair bit of gold dust on the wand. The book cost US$36,500. At today’s exchange rate, that’s the equivalent of about $46,500 Cdn.
And as strange as that may sound, UBC got a good deal.
Chelsea Shriver, UBC Rare Books and Special Collections librarian, said the university had been watching one rare book auction where the most expensive copy of the first U.K. edition went for US$81,000 (about $105,000).
“As soon as (the auction) started, we realized that we were completely out of it and watched it with our mouths sort of agape,” she said. “At that point, we already knew that auctions probably weren’t going to be possible for us.”
The original print run of the first Harry Potter book 20 years ago in the U.K. was 500. Of those, 300 went to libraries.
The UBC Library went through a rare book dealer that was able to locate a copy that was once in a library collection.
In 2015, UBC started collecting complete sets of the U.S., U.K. and Canadian first editions of the Harry Potter series.
The only one missing was the first U.K. edition of the first book. In the U.S., the first book is known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
“We wanted to make sure that we had the first Canadian, first U.S. and first U.K. edition of all the books because our children’s literature collection is American, British and Canadian,” Shriver said.
Shriver compared the Harry Potter series with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which has become a classic of children’s literature.
In 2015, on the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Alice in Wonderland, UBC Rare Books and Special Collections was able to mount an exhibition that included the first U.K. and U.S. editions.
Harry Potter, she said, hasn’t only been a big, popular success, it has become the subject of serious academic study as well.
“It seems that all early indications are that if it’s not the next Alice, then certainly it’s the most important children’s book in several generations,” she said by phone. “We’re not collecting just for collecting ’s sake. We’re making a piece of children’s literature history available for future generations.”
Last year, a crowdfunding campaign to raise $25,000 to buy the first edition raised $1,717. All funds contributed by the public to that campaign went to buying the missing book in UBC’s collection.
The first Harry Potter fantasy novel was published in 1997 and the last, The Deathly Hollows, in 2007. All were written by J. K. Rowling. All seven novels have together sold more than 500 million copies worldwide.
Local Harry Potter fans will be able to see the book this weekend. It will be on display at The Orpheum on Friday, Saturday and Sunday when the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performs the score live at three screenings of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Members of the public can see the book at UBC by signing up for a free patron card online. The book’s permanent home is in Rare Books and Special Collections in the basement of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.