J.K. Rowling has once again soared to the top of book charts, less than a day after it was announced that the eighth ‘Harry Potter’ title will be released in book form.
The play script of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ has already earned the number 1 spot on Amazon and Waterstones’ bestseller lists. It will be a copy of the text from the highly anticipated play, which opens on July 30 in London, and is expected to be made available past midnight the next day.
As Harry Potter fans have been expressing their excitement for the new book, Waterstones chief executive James Daunt assured readers that the launching of such piece will put previous Harry Potter book launches “into the shade.”
While previous installments in the widely popular book series had bookstores all over the world open at midnight to make fans happy as they obtain copies of Rowling’s legendary literary work, booksellers have reportedly been making a big commotion of organizing the events surrounding the ‘Cursed Child’ launch.
Little, Brown, the official publisher of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,’ admitted that it is “too early to say” whether they would be making a midnight openings this time, but that Rowling would not be present in any event relating to the launch.
After soaring to the top of the bestseller lists in Amazon and Waterstones, Daunt shared that there were “no sweeter three words to the ears of a bookseller than ‘the eighth story’.”
“Younger booksellers now face, of course, the dubious prospect of their older colleagues rolling out war stories of Harry Potter launches for the next five months. On 31 July, we will put these into the shade,” he stated.
Little, Brown chief executive David Shelley shared that Rowling, along with her team, had already received numerous requests from Potter fans who will not be able to make it to the London play to publish the story in book form.
“We are absolutely delighted to be able to make it available for them,” he said.
The highly anticipated eighth book of the Harry Potter series, which will be a duplicate of the script from the play written by Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, makes a transition from the action of the previous Potter stories to 19 years after ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ came to a conclusion.
Harry is now described as “an overworked employee of the ministry of magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children”, who has to deal “with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs”.
The book’s first version released on July 31 is expected to be a “special rehearsal edition” of the text used for the period of the preview performances in advance of its official opening.
“The preview process allows the creative team to rehearse changes and/or to explore specific scenes further, in front of a live audience. It means some final changes may still be made after publication … As such the script is subject to change.”
As such, the publisher states that this edition will only be made available for a limited time as it will be “replaced by the definitive collector’s edition at a later date”.
