The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a book of children's stories mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. After the publication of Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling authored and published a limited edition of a work of the same name, purportedly the same storybook as portrayed in Deathly Hallows; a copy of this work fetched £1.95 million at auction.

Only seven copies of the book have been created, all hand written and illustrated by Rowling. Each copy is leather-bound and decorated in silver and semi-precious stones. One copy of the book, the "moonstone edition", was auctioned by Sotheby's on 13 December 2007 to raise money for The Children's Voice, a charity that helps vulnerable children across Europe. Estimated to make £50,000, the book was eventually purchased with a winning bid of £1,950,000 by London fine art dealers Hazlitt Gooden and Fox on behalf of Amazon.com. The other copies of the book have been given away as gifts.

More on the purchase along with photos can be seen here on the Amazon web site.

Labels: beedle, harry potter, j.k. rowling, Tales of Beedle the Bard