'Harry Potter' tale is fastest-selling book in history

LONDON: The seventh and final volume in the Harry Potter series has become the fastest-selling book in history, its publishers said Monday, with more than 11 million copies sold during the first 24 hours in three markets alone.

U.S. sales of the eagerly awaited "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" hit 8.3 million, comfortably beating the previous installment, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which posted sales of 6.9 million copies in the first day, the U.S. publisher, Scholastic, announced.

In Britain, Bloomsbury sold a record 2.7 million copies of the final Potter book in the first 24 hours, up from just over two million for the previous Potter book. Bloomsbury said that nearly 400,000 copies of the English-language edition of the latest book were also bought in Germany.

Thousands of Potter fans waited outside bookstores in major cities around the world over the weekend to get hold of the book, which answers the questions "Who dies at the end?" and, in particular, "Does Harry survive?"

In India, police said that they had seized hundreds of pirated copies of the cover of "Deathly Hallows" after raiding a printing press, storage depot and private home in Bangalore.

Unauthorized Internet versions of the book circulated last week, and two U.S. newspapers ran reviews before publication, but it was not enough to dampen enthusiasm for the last chapter of the boy wizard's increasingly bloody fight against the forces of evil.

Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Trade and Book Fairs, likened the weekend excitement in the United States to the hysteria that greeted the Beatles' first visit to the country.

"This weekend kids and adults alike are sitting on buses, in the park, on airplanes and in restaurants reading 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,' " she said in a statement.

Barnes & Noble, the world's largest book retailer, sold 1.8 million copies of "Deathly Hallows" in the first 48 hours, while Borders Group sold around 1.2 million worldwide in a single day, both records for the outlets.

"This isn't the end of Harry Potter by any means," said Steve Riggio, chief of Barnes & Noble. "Barnes & Noble expects to sell millions of Harry Potter books over the next few years."

Reviews of "Deathly Hallows" have been almost universally glowing, noting the darker tone of the seventh book, in which several characters die. Critical reaction to the previous six Potter tales, which sold 325 million copies worldwide, was mixed.

The schoolboy wizard's creator, J.K. Rowling, is likely to see her fortune swell further over the coming years. She is estimated to be worth £545 million, or $1.12 billion, already, making her the first dollar-billionaire author.

In addition to the books, the first five Hollywood adaptations of her Harry Potter stories have amassed around $4 billion at the global box office. The final film in the franchise is slated for release in 2010.

"After 608 crammed pages, it's still hard to believe it really is the end of the road for Harry," said Henry Sutton, books editor for The Daily Mirror tabloid in Britain. He said he believed that the epilogue at the end of book seven meant there was "no possible return" for the Harry Potter saga.

Not everyone agrees. Hours after the release of "Deathly Hallows," Ladbrokes bookmakers cut their odds on an eighth book to 10/1 from 16/1, following a flurry of bets.