I discovered Harry Potter... and his book just conjured me up £120,000
JK ROWLING’s spellbinding talents have made her the world’s first billionaire author – and now the woman who discovered her has conjured up a fortune of her own.
A first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, containing a personal message from the writer to Bryony Evens, has sold at auction for almost £120,000.
Back in 1996, Miss Evens, an office manager at a London literary agency, first spotted the Edinburghbased author’s talents after plucking a manuscript from a reject pile.
Thanks to her intervention, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was sold to Bloomsbury for £2,500.
Published the following year in an edition of 500 hardbacks, it would launch the most successful book franchise in publishing history.
At a literary festival in 1998, Miss Evens met the author for the first time after queuing to have her copy of the novel signed.
Miss Rowling gave her a hug of gratitude, and signed the book ‘To Bryony – who is the most important person I have ever met in a signing queue & the first person to see merit in Harry Potter. With huge thanks, JK Rowling’. She underlined the word ‘huge’ four times.
When it went under the hammer at Bonhams in London yesterday, the book was bought by an overseas collector for £95,000 – or £118,812 including premiums. It is the secondhighest paid for a first edition of the novel, behind the £127,565 winning bid for a copy at Christie’s in New York in December 2018.
Matthew Haley, Bonhams’ head of books and manuscripts, said: ‘There was a great deal of interest in this book before the sale, as you would expect given its importance, and keen bidding on the day.’