Meet the Beedles

The title page of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard"

A new chapter in the publishing saga of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, is about to begin.

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard," released tomorrow, Dec. 4, will be distributed in three versions by Scholastic, Amazon.com, and Bloomsbury in England. It consists of five fantasy tales, one of which appeared in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Volume 7 of the series.

What sets this work apart from the Harry Potter books is that Rowling created seven original copies, each hand-written and illustrated by herself. According to an announcement by Scholastic, the seven copies are 157 pages in length, "bound in brown Moroccan leather and embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones." Rowling gave one copy to the Children's High-Level Group, a charity she co-founded to aid children in Europe living in institutions. It was auctioned for $4 million last year, and the high bidder was Amazon.com. Amazon is offering a facsimile edition of that copy for $100.

Scholastic's and Bloomsbury's versions will be typeset but, like the Potter series, will have different cover artwork for the U.S. and British markets, respectively. All editions are actually published by CHLG, with a percentage of proceeds going to the group's good works. Scholastic's is priced at $12.99.

The other six copies were given to Rowling's friends, people to whom she was grateful for their support of Harry Potter through the years. One was Arthur A. Levine of Scholastic, co-editor of the eight-book series. Starting tomorrow and continuing through Jan. 4, Levine's copy will be displayed at the New York Public Library.

One assumes that hordes of kids will swarm to the library, at Fifth Avenue and 42d Street, to see this object from the hand of their heroine. It must be worth at least as much as Amazon's copy. How odd that something brand-new could be so precious. More often, an artifact like the Book of Kells or other fantastically rare codex would be thus treated. But then, the tale of J.K. Rowling herself is rarer and more fantastic than anything she could have dreamed up.