When JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone she didn’t just bring the characters to life with words, she also drew illustrations. They were not included when the book was published, but now the author’s original drawings will appear alongside her story for the first time when the book is reprinted to mark its 25th anniversary.
One sketch shows Rubeus Hagrid, Professor Albus Dumbledore and Professor Minerva McGonagall huddled together in a moonlit Privet Drive, while a small series of five drawings depicts Diagon Alley. All reveal Rowling’s early feeling for characters now familiar to children across the globe as the stars of a series that has sold more than 500m copies and been translated into 80 languages.
