As the Cursed Child plays open to rave reviews, with runaway sales for the script, the author declares that this is the end for the former boy wizard, now 37

JK Rowling has told her millions of fans that the story of Harry Potter “is done now”.

Speaking to Reuters this weekend at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the pair of plays that see the boy wizard portrayed as a 37-year-old parent, Rowling said that the release of the plays and their accompanying script did not mark the release of a new series of stories.

“He goes on a very big journey during these two plays and then, yeah, I think we’re done. This is the next generation, you know,” she told Reuters. “So, I’m thrilled to see it realised so beautifully but, no, Harry is done now.”

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Released at midnight on Saturday night, an event marked with parties at bookshops around the UK, the script is topping book charts. Pre-orders at Waterstones topped 100,000 copies, the book chain told the Guardian last week, and it was the most pre-ordered book of the year at Amazon.co.uk. In less than two days, reviews of the script on Amazon.co.uk already number almost 200, the majority of them positive.

In the US, publisher Scholastic is printing 4.5m copies of the script, while in Australia, publisher Hachette Australia told the Herald Sun that it has sold more than 100,000 copies, with the title the year’s fastest-selling book to date.

“It’s been an amazing weekend,” said Waterstones buying director Kate Skipper on Monday. “First-day sales have been incredible and our launch day parties surpassed all expectations. Our shops went for it and we couldn’t have asked for more from our booksellers, they’ve been amazing. We’re thrilled with how our sales are tracking so far and we’re working hard to ensure we keep up with demand. Overall sales are in line with our pre-order indications, so we’re very pleased.”

It was also announced on Monday that the Royal National Institute of Blind People has teamed up with the script’s UK publisher, Little, Brown, to release giant print and braille versions of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, aimed at blind and partially-sighted readers, available immediately. An edition for dyslexic readers has also been released, by large-print publisher WF Howes Ltd, in collaboration with Little, Brown and the British Dyslexia Association.