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Harry Potter and the 'desperate booksellers'

12/07/2007

The final Harry Potter book may be sold before its publication date, a spokesperson for the British bookselling industry has said.

Katherine Rushton of Bookseller magazine told the BBC she was concerned that the main incentive booksellers had to respect the embargo – a threat that the next edition of the septology may be withheld – would not be present for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

"Because it's the final Harry Potter, Bloomsbury doesn't have that same power. It has played its last ace card," she explained.

"They'd do it to be first and for all the PR… If such a thing were to happen, we believe that the public would make their feelings known by not buying it from such a spoilsport retailer," she said.

Fourteen copies of the fifth of JK Rowling's enormously successful series were sold prior to the publication date in the US and it seems almost inevitable that somewhere around the world the final book will leak into the public domain before Saturday July 21st.

Publisher Bloomsbury are doing all they can to prevent this from taking place, as Rowling herself has made clear she does not want her surprise to be spoiled.

"There will always be sad individuals who get their kicks from ruining other people's fun," she writes on her website.

"Even if the biggest secret gets out - even if somebody discovers the Giant Squid is actually the world's largest Animagus, which rises from the lake at the eleventh hour, transforms into Godric Gryffindor and... well, I wouldn't like to spoil it," Rowling added.

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