Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

First edition. First Impression, First State. 8vo. Pp. 317, [3, blank]. Laminated pictorial boards with cover illustration by Cliff Wright replicated on the dust jacket (priced £10.99 to front flap). "Double Smarties Award-Winning Author" commendation to bottom of cover and jacket. With all correct first state points: copyright 'Joanne Rowling 1999' on the verso of the title-page; line break after the word 'burnt' (page 7, line 24/25); correct number sequence 10–1 stated on the copyright page; printer listed as 'Clays Ltd'; no adverts at rear.

A total of 5,150 copies were published on 8 July 1988 of all three states, with around half of these comprising the first state. The title was released at precisely 3:45 p.m., so British schoolkids wouldn't play truant on the day. In the end, the first print run proved insufficient, with a further 101,800 copies re-printed by Clays a month later.

As new.

Winner of the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year. Listed at number 24 in BBC's Big Read, 200 Best Novels, [2003]. The third in the series featuring young boy-wizard Harry Potter, about to start his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

[Errington, Philip W., J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography, rev. ed. (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), A7(a)]