Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

ROWLING, J.K.

$6,000.00

Item Number: 147076

London : Bloomsbury, 2003.

First edition, second printing of the fifth novel in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series. Octavo, original pictorial boards. Signed by five members of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2003) film cast on the title page, including Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), and Jamie Waylett (Vincent Crabbe). Additionally signed opposite the title page by director Alfonso Cuarón. With a detailed letter of provenance from the devoted Harry Potter fan who had the book signed by all five actors and the film director during filming of the Prisoner of Azkaban in the summer of 2003 which notes that the book is “signed by a few… cast members I managed to meet when I visited (and patiently waited by the fence) the film set of the Prisoner of Azkaban in the Summer of 2003… I used to live in Virginia Water which has been filming location for many of the Harry Potter Films, the Prisoner of Azkaban was filming there in the Spring/Summer of 2003, I spent numerous days watching the filming and collecting the autographs of the Director & above cast members at Virginia Water Lake in Windsor Great Park (I was a major Harry Potter fan in my youth and used to run a Harry Potter fan site! … The autograph of Daniel Radcliffe was the hardest to get, at the time we were not allowed to approach him directly, and had to wait outside his caravan on the set while his parents took our book to him for signing. All the other cast members were approachable on the edge of the forest where they were filming (As the fencing was just red tape between trees). Was a fun few days collecting the autographs!’ Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a closed tear to the rear panel. Small original ownership name to the pastedown, “Rashed.” Jacket illustrations by Jason Cockcroft. A unique example with noted provenance.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, more than any of the four previous novels in the series, is a coming-of-age story. Harry faces the thorny transition into adulthood, when adult heroes are revealed to be fallible, and matters that seemed black-and-white suddenly come out in shades of gray. Gone is the wide-eyed innocent, the whiz kid of Sorcerer's Stone. Here we have an adolescent who's sometimes sullen, often confused, and always self-questioning. Confronting death again, as well as a startling prophecy, Harry ends his year at Hogwarts exhausted and pensive. "The Order of the Phoenix starts slow, gathers speed and then skateboards, with somersaults, to its furious conclusion....As Harry gets older, Rowling gets better." (John Leonard, The New York Times). It was made into the 2007 film directed by David Yates, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.