Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

This is a true second printing hardcover copy of the most famous and most sought after children’s book of all time. It is well known and well documented that the first printing had a print run of 500 hardcover copies and 5150 paperback copies. Within a week, numerous errors were noticed in the first printing and very quickly a second print run of 1000 hardcover copies was printed. This is one of those very rare 1/1000 copies in fine, beautiful condition. The most famous of the many errors corrected from the first printing to the second include the correction of  the misspelled Philospher’s on the rear cover along with Wizardry and Witchcraft, corrected to Witchcraft and Wizardry. Also, the very well known error of 1 wand listed twice on page 53, now correctly only appears once in the second printing.  Similarities between the two still show the missing space between Thomas Taylor1997 on the copyright page as well as the Wendy Cooling quote ‘A terrific read and a stunning first novel’ at the bottom of the front cover. The copyright page shows a number line of  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 to show that it is a second printing.

This stunning copy is clearly unread, the binding is still square and tight with no colour fading at all to the boards or spine. The page edges are white and fresh which is extremely rare for these books as they are well known for their cheap paper stock which is almost always found to be toned and discoloured. The corners of the boards are still sharp and the head and tail of the spine still appear firm. Internally, the pages are all present, clean with no library stamps, no dog eared pages, no personal inscriptions or writing of any kind. A true collector’s copy. The book comes housed in a quarter leather, red clamshell box, custom made for this particular book to further preserve its condition. There was no dust jacket issued for the first and second printings of this book.

This copy comes with a cover artwork bookplate signed by J.K. Rowling. It is loose, not stuck down into the book and fully authenticated as a genuine signature by Adam Houston, The Harry Potter Specialist. As well as the clamshell box and signed bookplate, this book also comes with a full authenticity package that includes a Letter of Authenticity and Collector Card.