J.K. Rowling Will Auction Hand-Written Harry Potter Prequel for Charity

Rowling's hand-written prequel, signed by the author, will be auctioned alongside works by other famous writers to raise cash for a dyslexia charity.

Despite the brevity of the piece, experts believe it could fetch big money, since other autographed works by the blockbuster author have sold for millions of dollars.

"We never dreamed that J.K. Rowling would donate something so precious, and we're incredibly grateful," said Gerry Johnson, managing director of Waterstone's, the UK book chain organizing the auction.

"I can't begin to guess how much it will raise at auction."

A previous 93-word storycard from Rowling, which referred to the book "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," sold in 2002 for $53,000. Rowling later produced seven hand-written copies of a new work, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," one of which sold for $3.9 million in 2007.

In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers (Sebastian Faulks, Doris Lessing, Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Child, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh) to compose a short piece of their own choosing on a single A5 card, which would then be sold at auction in aid of the charities Dyslexia Action and English PEN. Rowling's contribution was an 800-word prequel to the Harry Potter series. Rowling claims that she does not intend to return to Harry Potter for at least ten years.[121][122]