J. K. Rowling to Donate Proceeds of Upcoming Book to Charity

J. K. Rowling plans to publish a book of wizarding fairy tales in December to donate the proceeds to her charity for vulnerable children, the author announced on Thursday. Her newest book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, is to be published on December 4, reported Reuters.

The seven original copies of the book are bound in brown Moroccan leather and decorated in silver moonstones. Six of the copies were given to people connected to the Potter books and the seventh was auctioned off to Amazon.com Inc. for about $4 million. The company is reportedly to produce up to 100,000 copies of the book with the aim of recreating the feel of the original book and will be sold for $100, according to Reuters.

Bloomsbury Publishing, as well as Scholastic, will begin publishing editions of the book with an introduction by Rowling and will be sold for only $12.99. Rowling told Reuters in a statement, "The new edition will include the Tales themselves, translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, and with illustrations by me, but also notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by generous permission of the Hogwarts Headmaster's Archive."

The proceeds of the book will be donated to the Children's High Level Group, a charity the author founded in 2005 to help the 1 million children across Europe still living in large residential institutions. Only one of the five stories in the 157-page book, "The Tales of the Three Brothers," is told in the Potter novels. It comes in the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, reported Reuters.