Rowling's 'Harry Potter' chair up for auction
March 8, 2016
As a single mother on welfare in 1995, J.K. Rowling received four mismatched chairs from the British government to furnish her subsidized apartment. She sat on one of them to write "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the first two parts of the wizardry youth series which would make Rowling the first author to earn $1 billion (about 906 million euros).
In 2002, Rowling donated the chair to a British aid organization for children, but not before she decorated it with gold, red and green paint. She also added the inscription "You may not find me/ pretty - but / don't judge / on what you see" to the chair.
The buyer of the chair will also receive a letter from Rowling herself, as proof of its provenance, addressed to "Dear new owner of my chair." It goes on to briefly tell the story of how she acquired the furniture in 1995.
"My nostalgic side is quite sad to see it go, but my back isn't," concludes Rowling in the letter.
The chair will go up for auction on April 6 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas. J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter books" have been translated into 78 languages and sold 450 million copies worldwide.
kbm/cmk (dpa)