Rowling, J. K.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, PAPERBACK ISSUE. AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY

INSCRIBED "to Davey and Tommy – great to meet you at last! J.K. Rowling." The recipients' mother is Jenny Brown, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Brown served as Director of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) from 1996 through 2002. This copy comes directly from the Brown family. 

We find just four other inscribed presentation copies of the first printing with documented provenance in online auction records. Only two of these four has a literary association (see below).

In 1996 Jenny Brown, the newly appointed Director of Literature at the SAC, led an initiative to establish a new program to support authors of children's literature. The first applicant to the award for children's literature was J K Rowling. In 1996 Rowling received an £8000 grant from the SAC. Rowling later told the chairman of the Arts Council, Magnus Linklater, that the award "transformed her life" by allowing her to pay for childcare during the whole of a year, it had allowed her to complete the second Harry Potter volume at a time when "she had no prospects of success for the first" (Magnus Linklater, Prospect Magazine).

NOTE:  The other four inscribed presentation copies of the first printing with documented provenance we find in auction records comprise: a copy inscribed to Bryony Evens, office manager at Christopher Little, Rowling's literary agency (Bonhams, 2020); a copy inscribed to a personal friend from Rowling's daughter's daycare in Edinburgh (Bonhams, 2017); a softcover printing inscribed to Rowling's father (Sotheby's, 2003); and a softcover printing inscribed to the first journalist to interview Rowling (Heritage, 2010).

Bloomsbury, 1997. Octavo, publisher's pictorial wrappers (misspelling "Philospher"), paperback issue (number sequence from 10 to 1); faint trace of damp at lower margin of opening and final few leaves, typical paper toning, few creases and abrasions, laminate separated in places with minor loss.

Provenance: The Jenny Brown family (via Bonhams, lot 165, December 1, 2021)