The story of how I found my first edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling at Henry Pordes on Charing Cross Road, London!
After
successfully finding the third, fifth, and seventh books under
Waterloo Bridge (read that adventure here) I only needed a copy of
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to complete my UK Childrens'
Edition set. I was determined to find it later that day when we went
to Charing Cross Road, even if I had to go into every single book
shop, which is exactly what I did. I went into each shop and looked
around. If their children's book section was not easily found I'd ask
if they had copies of Harry Potter.
 |
| A quick photo of me on Cecil Ct! |
Most
didn't have any and those that did, none of them were HBP. In the
third or fourth shop, Henry Pordes, I found a copy fairly quickly at
the bottom of a pile. It was a nice shop with multiple rooms and high
shelves. However, this shop wanted £20
for the first edition. Normally, I would fork that out no problem,
but since I had just hours before bought two first editions and one
early edition all for only £5
more I was leery to spend so much. I figured I would check out other
shops and if I couldn't find a cheaper one I'd come back. I tried
several more after that. I found one in a set of firsts that the
owner wanted a few thousand quid for the set which obviously wasn't
for me.
The
last shop I went to was Marchpane, a shop devoted to children's
books, down Cecil Ct. I was excited because I saw a copy in the
window. I walked in and was immediately alarmed by the union jack
covered Dalek that stood near the door. It set the tone of the room
better than anything else could. It consisted of one tiny room packed
with books. There was a man behind a desk that was on a risen
platform. He was grunting at a couple who were asking the prices of
some Alice in Wonderland
books that lined his platform thing. He seemed so annoyed with them
when he said they ranged from £5
to several thousand that I didn't ask any questions at first. I
noticed their Harry Potter books were on the left wall behind a cart
of other books. I became a contortionist to carefully extract them
from their shelves to look at them. I was alarmed at the prices I saw
on those covers. Several hundred pounds and they weren't even firsts!
 |
| The Dalek |
By this time the couple had left and I asked Mr. Grumpypuss about the
book in the window. He said he would gladly sell it to me for £800.
My jaw hit the floor. I said back, “Wow, ok. I hope you sell it to
some inexperience collector some day!” I planned to leave
immediately, but plucked up the courage to ask to take a picture of
the Dalek (who knew when I would see another terrifying alien
again?).
Needless
to say, once I left I told my mom to hang about in Cecil Ct. for a
bit because I was going to run back to Henry Pordes and buy that
extremely reasonable £20
copy of Half-Blood Prince and thus completed my UK Childrens
Collection.
~Laura!
0 comments:
Post a Comment