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Amazon.com Buys Rowling Fairy Tale for $4 Million

Amazon.com Inc., which has sold more than 12 million Harry Potter books online, said it bought J.K. Rowling’s handwritten volume of fairy tales for 1.95 million pounds ($3.98 million) at a London charity auction yesterday.“The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” a book of five wizardry fairy tales mentioned in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” is one of seven copies Rowling handmade after finishing the Potter series. Sotheby’s presale top estimate was 50,000 pounds. The money will go to the Children’s Voice, a charity co-founded by Rowling and Emma Nicholson, a member of the U.K. House of Lords.

“Even before establishing her charity, J.K. Rowling had done the world a rare and immeasurably valuable service — enlarging forever our concept of the way books can touch people — and in particular children — in modern times,” said Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos in a release. “When we deliver Harry Potter, kids are camped out at the post box.”

Sotheby’s took no commission on the sale to the world’s largest online bookstore. The price exceeded the top estimate 39 times as about six bidders were winnowed down to two. The six other copies of the book were given to Rowling’s friends to thank them for their support while she was writing the Harry Potter series, the Amazon release said.

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