Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

An Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) is an uncorrected proof of a book about to be published. They are usually sent to book sellers, editors and reviewers prior to public release. Many of these books were read and often thrown away or damaged due to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling being fairly unknown at that time, particularly before the release of the first book. There is an estimated 3000 of each of the US ARC books printed.

The Prisoner of Azkaban ARC, you may notice that it doesn’t not bear the usual cover art and instead has a purple and black diamond pattern. This is because Mary GranPre the illustrator os the US books had not finished the cover art by the time this ARC was published, because Scholastic changed the publishing date to earlier than expected. The publishing information on the rear cover shows us that there were 500,000 first printing copies to be printed. By this time, Harry Potter was getting more and more popular and therefore more printings of the book were needed to supply the growing demand.

This book is in near fine condition with full colours to the spine, front and back covers. It has some obvious shelf wear and some spotting to the page edges. The binding is square and tight and the book appears unread with no creases at all down the spine. Internally there are no dog eared pages, ownership inscriptions or any unwanted pen marks. This copy looks great on the shelf and would be a fantastic addition to anyone’s collection.