Trump confronts repeated boos during raucous Libertarian convention speech
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
J.K. Rowling’s 1997 novel “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was the beginning of what would become a worldwide phenomenon. Now, the original illustration for the first edition of the book is going on sale.
Expected to sell for up to US$600,000 at auction next month, it is the highest presale value ever placed on a Harry Potter-related item, according to auction house Sotheby’s.
The watercolour cover art was created by author and illustrator Thomas Taylor.
The image features young wizard Harry Potter – with his unmistakable dark, brown hair, round glasses and lightning bolt scar – ready to board the Hogwarts Express train for his first trip to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Taylor’s cover was used for several translated versions of the book, the auction house said. However, it was not used for the U.S. edition of the book, which was released with the title “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
When the illustration was first up for auction at Sotheby’s in London in 2001, it sold for around four times its estimated sale price, for a record 85,750 British pounds (about US$106,000), according to a Sotheby’s press release Thursday.
In June, “more than 20 years later, the original illustration returns to auction poised to not only far exceed the value it previously sold, but also to potentially set a new auction record for any Harry Potter related item,” the auction house said in the release.
The record for an item related to the book series is currently held by an unsigned first edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” which sold for US$421,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, in 2021, according to Sotheby’s.
Taylor, just 23 years old at the time, created the original cover image in two days, according to Sotheby’s.
At the time of the book’s publication, Taylor was working in a bookshop, where his colleagues would inform customers that their local bookseller was the illustrator of the high-selling novel, according to Sotheby’s.
The illustration will be offered on June 26 at Sotheby’s in New York along with other works of English and American Literature.
The auction house will then offer one of J.K. Rowling’s handwritten original manuscripts for her 2007 book “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” on July 10.
The manuscript is one of six handwritten by the British author that was originally intended as gifts for people closely involved with the publication of “Harry Potter,” according to the release.
Both the illustration and the manuscript will be exhibited at Sotheby’s in New York between June 21 to 25.
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
According to some experts, there is one type of screen time that is continuously excessive, and it's having a severe effect on our children.
A year has passed since two-year-old Vienna Irwin was found on the property of a home-based daycare in small-town Ontario, but her family says they are no closer to answers of what happened that day.
Two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died Saturday morning at age 30, one day after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial.
The family of one of the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 says they are 'thankful' for a decision by a Calgary immigration board to deport the driver of the truck involved.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
An emotional outburst in a London, Ont. courtroom Friday disrupted the sentencing hearing of a woman who pleaded guilty for her part in the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdallah.
Three people have died after a vehicle veered off the road in Shediac N.B., Friday morning.
An Edmonton woman found guilty of trying to kill her three children has been denied an appeal.
When one is extended an invitation to the Royal Garden Party in London, England, there's undoubtedly no shortage of pomp and circumstance. Barrie, Ont. natives Megan Kirk Chang and her husband Brandon experienced just that as they entered the prestigious event hosted at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.
An unlikely celebrity emerged from social media to cheer on the Edmonton Oilers as they face the Dallas Stars tonight in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
The proprietors of Regina's sole discount theatre are aware they're carrying on a significant legacy.
When Jujhar Mann said he wanted to be a pastry chef on a grade school career project, he didn't imagine that pursuing his dream would land him on a popular Netflix baking competition.
A city known for its history, ties to outer space and southern barbecue, is also home to a Winnipeg chef dishing out dozens of perogies.
A Montreal photographer captured the moment a Canada goose defended itself from a fox at the Botanical Garden.
Public libraries in Atlantic Canada are now lending a broader range of items.
Flashes of purple darting across the sky mixed with the serenading sound of songs will be noticed more with spring in full force in Manitoba.
Catching 'em all with impressive speed, a 7-year-old boy from Windsor, Ont. who only started his competitive Pokémon journey seven months ago has already levelled up to compete at a world championship level.