Press Release

BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PRESS RELEASE

News release – Tuesday 7th March 2017 – 12:00pm

BLOOMSBURY REVEALS FRONT COVER OF HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN ILLUSTRATED EDITION

‘A second later, a gigantic pair of wheels and headlights had screeched to a halt exactly where Harry had just been lying. They belonged, as Harry saw when he raised his head, to a triple-decker, violently purple bus, which had appeared out of thin air. Gold lettering over the windscreen spelled The Knight Bus.’

Bloomsbury Publishing is excited to reveal the cover of the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Illustrated Edition written by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay. Illustrated by Jim Kay, Kate Greenaway Medal winner, the front cover image shows the iconic triple-decker Knight Bus that whisks Harry off to Diagon Alley at the beginning of the book.

Published globally on Tuesday 3rd October 2017 the hardback edition will include ribbon marker, head and tail bands, illustrated endpapers and over 115 colour images. The illustrated edition will be published in more than 21 languages around the world. All will be using Jim Kay’s artwork and will join together to bring this beautiful edition to life.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Illustrated Edition was published to huge acclaim in October 2015. Sales of the book exceeded 100,000 copies through UK TCM within the first six months of publication and the book was shortlisted for The Bookseller Children’s Book of the Year. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Illustrated Edition followed in October 2016 and hit the No.1 position in the official UK Children’s TCM Chart. Jim Kay’s inspired reimagining of J.K. Rowling’s classic series has captured a devoted following with over one million copies sold worldwide.

Pottermore, the digital heart of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, will exclusively reveal extra artwork from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Illustrated Edition at 12:00pm on Tuesday 7th March 2016. Visit Pottermore.com to see more of Jim Kay’s beautiful art.

The Harry Potter novels have now sold over 450 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 79 languages. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was voted the nation’s favourite children’s book in a 2013 poll by reading charity Booktrust and celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2017.

Notes to editors:

J.K. Rowling is the author of the record-breaking, multi-award-winning Harry Potter novels. Loved by fans around the world, the series has sold over 450 million copies, been translated into 79 languages, and made into 8 blockbuster films. She has written three companion volumes in aid of charity: Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (in aid of Comic Relief and Lumos), and The Tales of Beedle the Bard (in aid of Lumos), as well as a film script inspired by Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, her screenwriting debut, and a further extension of the Wizarding World, which was released in November 2016. In 2012, J.K. Rowling’s digital company Pottermore was launched, where fans can enjoy news, features and articles, as well as original content by J.K. Rowling.

Her first novel for adult readers, The Casual Vacancy was published in September 2012 and adapted for TV by the BBC in 2015. Her crime novels, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, were published in 2013 (The Cuckoo’s Calling), 2014 (The Silkworm) and 2015 (Career of Evil), and are to be adapted for a major new television series for BBC One, produced by Brontë Film and Television.

J.K. Rowling’s 2008 Harvard commencement speech was published in 2015 as an illustrated book, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination, and sold in aid of Lumos and university–wide financial aid at Harvard.

J.K. Rowling has recently collaborated with writer Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany on the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two, which is now running at The Palace Theatre in London’s West End. As well as receiving an OBE for services to children’s literature, she has received many awards and honours, including France’s Légion d’Honneur, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award. www.jkrowling.com

Jim Kay won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2012 for his illustrations in A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. He studied illustration at the University of Westminster, and worked in the Library & Archives of Tate Britain and then as an assistant curator of botanical illustrations at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew before returning to producing art full-time. After a one-man exhibition at Richmond Gallery he was approached by a publisher and his freelance career began. Alongside his illustration work, Jim has produced concept work for film and television, and contributed to the group exhibition Memory Palace at the V&A museum in London. In 2013 Bloomsbury commissioned Jim to illustrate J.K. Rowling’s classic series and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Illustrated Edition was published to international acclaim in 2015. Jim lives and works in Northamptonshire with his partner.