By Scott Reyburn
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- J.K. Rowling's handwritten prequel to the ``Harry Potter'' novels, which sold for 25,000 pounds ($48,910) at a London charity auction last night, will be used to raise more money for philanthropy, the buyer said.
The signed, 800-word short story -- the star lot in a sale of 13 ``storycards'' by authors, including Sebastian Faulks, Richard Ford, Doris Lessing, Nick Hornby and Tom Stoppard -- was bought by Hira Digpal, president of Tokyo-based investment-banking consulting company Red-33.
Digpal, who originally had a closed bid of 50,000 pounds before halving his offer, said he faxed a letter to Rowling's publisher asking for the author's cooperation to use the story in a way that would raise more money for charity. He declined to give details of the proposal.
``Here I am, owning a piece of literary history,'' said Digpal in a phone interview from Tokyo. ``I think I got a bargain. Hopefully, we can raise much more than the sale.''
Rowling's contribution was the last lot in the invitation- only sale of works written on blank sheets of A5 card, called ``What's Your Story?'' The 47,150 pounds raised in total will go to English PEN and Dyslexia Action, said U.K. bookseller Waterstone's, a unit of HMV Group Plc, which hosted the sale.
Waterstone's confirmed Digpal was the buyer, said Jane Opoku, account director at Colman Getty, the event's public relations company.
Digpal's bid topped the offer of one of the crowd of 100 guests who attended the event, conducted by Sotheby's auctioneer Edward Rising at Waterstone's branch in Piccadilly. The Rowling lot attracted interest from only one bidder in the room.
`Good Investment'
``I told them, if it gets past my limit, call me -- wake me up,'' said Digpal, 36, a Briton who received the news that he'd won at 5:27 a.m. ``I was thinking of buying stocks, but the market's been very volatile. It's a good investment for when I kick the bucket in 30, 40, 50 years' time.''
During the bidding, Rising reminded the audience of the record 1.95 million pounds auction price paid by Amazon.com Inc. in December for Rowling's handwritten volume, ``The Tales of Beedle the Bard,'' at a Sotheby's charity sale in London.
``I didn't want to sell this for a bargain,'' said Rising just before the hammer fell.
All the storycards were sold without reserves and buyers paid no auction-house fees.
Car Chase
The text of the Potter prequel, which features a magical car and motorcycle chase involving Harry's father, concludes with the teasing words ``from the prequel I am not working on --but that was fun!''
The texts will be published by Waterstone's in August, according to a statement from the company last month. Rowling, 42, has ruled out a full prequel to the novels about the boy wizard, which have sold about 400 million copies.
Among the other stories sold were a ``theatrical short mystery'' by Tom Stoppard, for 4,000 pounds, and a ``classically inspired erotic tale'' by Sebastian Faulks, author of the latest James Bond thriller, for 2,500 pounds, said Waterstone's. Faulks is a former winner of the U.K.'s ``Bad Sex'' literary award.
``We're really pleased with the result,'' said Gerry Johnson, managing director of Waterstone's in an interview. ``We raised a nice sum for charity and it was a great success for writing.''
Asked why the auction had been an invitation-only event, without participation from the general public, Johnson said: ``We felt this was the best way to do it. This was a charity auction. It wasn't exclusively about making money.''
(Scott Reyburn writes for Bloomberg News. Any opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Reyburn in London at sreyburn@hotmail.com.
Last Updated: June 11, 2008 05:58 EDT
