JK Rowling's prequel to Harry Potter raises £25,000
Howard Lake | 13 June 2008 | News
Waterstone’s ‘What’s your story?’ auction, held this week at the bookseller’s flagship store on Piccadilly in London, raised £47,150 for Dyslexia Action and literacy charity English Pen.
Author JK Rowling donated to the event an 800-word prequel to the Harry Potter series. Her handwritten and signed storycard is set three years before Harry is born and features the characters Sirius Black and Harry’s father James Potter. The item sold for £25,000.
JK Rowling commented: “I had great fun writing the card and I’m absolutely delighted that it has raised £25,000 for two such worthy causes.”
Other storycards were donated by authors including Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Child, Sebastian Faulks, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Doris Lessing, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh.
Tom Stoppard’s storycard was sold for £4,000, Sebastian Faulks’ for £2,500 and Doris Lessing’s for £3,000.
The proceeds will be split equally between the two charities.
Waterstone’s is already taking pre-orders for an exclusive limited edition ‘What’s Your Story?’ postcard book featuring all these stories. To be published in early August, all profits will be donated to Dyslexia Action and English Pen.
All the stories are now available to read, at Waterstones.com and in Waterstone’s store windows.
www.waterstones.com/whatsyourstory
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.