‘J.A.’ Rowling debut novel goes under the hammer

By Rory Reynolds

SHE is now among the richest woman in Britain, and amassed much of her £500million fortune in just five years, after the titanic success of her adventure novels.

But JK Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury, once sent out a copy of Harry Potter and the Philoshoper’s Stone to critics, authors and booksellers across the UK – with her name spelt wrong.

Critics’ first glimpse of the novel, which had been written by the impoverished single mum in coffee shops around Edinburgh, cited the author as J.A.Rowling, with the publisher’s note calling her ‘Joanna’.

Now the mistake has been revealed as an ‘uncorrected’ version goes under the hammer today at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh.

The plain-covered novel, which contains grammatical and spelling errors, is expected to fetch around £1800.