Local girl discovers priceless Harry Potter book in Wimbledon Library 11-year-old Emily Saiban unearthed a first print, first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in the children’s section of Wimbledon Library. Another first print, first edition book, of which only 500 were ever published, was recently auctioned for a hammer price of £46,000. Despite being in the possession of the library for 21 years, the book (understood to be verified by head librarian Paul McDermott) is in remarkably pristine condition – with minimal creasing and the occasional scribble of colouring pencil on the blank pages.

Emily attributes her discovery to ‘SuperCarlinBrothers’, a YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers specialising in videos debating the Harry Potter universe as well as Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar. In one of their videos, they describe how to spot valuable Harry Potter books, and as a result, Emily knew exactly what to look for when proving the book’s validity. “The first thing I noticed was a younger Dumbledore on the back cover” she explained. “Then, I looked on page 53 to see if wand was listed twice on Harry’s school equipment list.” Among other errors, the first print described Hogwarts as a school of “Wizardly and Witchcraft” on the blurb, as well as spelling ‘Philosophers’ as “Philosphers”. Finally, “I saw that the numbers on the copyright read ‘10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1’ and the authors name was indicated as ‘Joanne Rowling’ instead of JK Rowling”.

With the evidence mounting up, Emily’s emotions rose from excitement to delirium – this was the real deal! She returned to the library and calmly went through her proof of the book’s legitimacy to the librarian. Understandably, they were incredulous at first but as the analysis continued, they became more open to the possibility of its’ authenticity. Eventually, the library decided to take the book off the shelves in order to carry out a more forensic analysis and, as of this week, have found it to be the real thing.

Wimbledon Library have not yet stated what they are going to do with the book, with more details expected to emerge on the 14th of December. However, suffice to say they are extremely grateful to Emily for her discovery – which could significantly increase the library’s funds in the near future.

Toby Saiban, Wilson's School