Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (First Australian edition)

London : Bloomsbury, 1997 [1998]. Printed and bound in Australia by Australian Print Group, Maryborough, Vic. First issue of the first Australian edition. Octavo, laminated boards (bump to head and foot of spine, slight wear to corners) in illustrated dust jacket (edge wear, a little crumpled at head and foot of spine, upper and lower edges, short splits to corners); pp. 223, the original juvenile owner’s name and telephone number inscribed in yellow Texta to the front free endpaper, a small stain to lower free endpaper and pastedown, otherwise clean internally, a good copy of the rare first Australian edition.

The true first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was printed in London on 30 June 1997, and would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry of publications, films and merchandise. 500 copies were published in hardback, of which 300 or so were distributed to UK schools, where they faced the usual school library treatment of stickers, lamination and sticky fingers. A trade paperback was issued in a few thousand copies the same year. In 1998 the first US edition appeared under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

While the colophon states a publication date for the Australian edition of 1997, there are two giveaways that this date is misleading. On the dustjacket is an advertisement to say the book won the Smarties Book Award of 1997 (which was awarded in November) and on the verso of the title page is the statement ‘Also available : Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. As Chamber was first published in the U.K. on 2nd July 1998, the Australian edition must be 1998 or even possibly early 1999.

A good example of the first Australian edition of one of the icons of children’s literature. Copies are increasingly scarce in the market.