Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

On 2 July 1998, a year after the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the second instalment in the series was published. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets appeared in hardback with a dust jacket, featuring a blue circle on the front noting that the first book had won the 1997 Smarties Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. That honour ultimately went to Tim Bowler for his novel River Boy.

By mid-1998, Harry Potter had already surpassed River Boy in commercial terms. The first book had seen two hardbacks and over a dozen paperback printings, and international rights had been sold to several countries, including Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and the USA. Encouraged by this overwhelming success, the publisher decided to invest more in the cover design for the second book.

As a result, the young illustrator Thomas Taylor—who had created the iconic cover of the first volume—was replaced by the more experienced Cliff Wright. No one could have imagined that Taylor’s original artwork, his very first paid commission, would go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in 2024 for a record-breaking $1.9 million.

Wright initially produced two separate illustrations: one showing a landscape with a partial view of the flying Ford Anglia, and another depicting the full car with Harry, Ron, and Hedwig inside, intended as a shop display design. The publisher ultimately chose to combine both illustrations to create the final cover artwork.

In his bibliography, Philip Errington cites a first print run of only 706 copies, confirmed by Bloomsbury. However, he adds a caveat—this figure is often questioned due to the relatively high number of surviving copies on the market. Considering the success of the first book and the growing demand for the series, it seems highly unlikely that the second book would have had such a limited print run. A much larger print run would have been necessary to meet market expectations. As a result, it is now widely assumed that approximately 10,150 copies were printed.

Interestingly, printer Clays reported that the second print run consisted of only 200 copies, while the third and subsequent printings were produced in batches of 5,000. The reason for such a small second run remains unclear—perhaps a series of textual corrections prompted the decision. Alternatively, the figures may simply be inaccurate. What is certain, however, is that second printings are vanishingly rare on the market, making a low print run highly plausible.

First printings are identifiable by the number line on the copyright page, where the lowest number in the sequence indicates the printing. A true first printing shows a number line reading 10 to 1, a second printing 10 to 2, and so forth. This system was used by the publisher for the first three books in the series. From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire onwards, first editions are marked with the phrase “First Edition,” and the number line is only used for later printings.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was initially published only as a hardback, with the paperback edition following six months later. The official launch of the paperback took place in the presence of the author on 28 January 1999, on Platform 1 at King's Cross Station. The exact print run is unknown but is presumed to have been many times larger than that of the hardback.

By the time the paperback was released, the hardback had already gone through seven printings. The Hogwarts Crest was not added to the hardback edition until the eighth printing. As with the first book, the publisher took this opportunity to implement a number of text corrections, the most noticeable of which appear on the inside flap of the dust jacket. One such correction is easy to spot: in the final line, “, age 10” was changed to “Age 10.” For collectors, this detail is key—a true first printing must have a dust jacket that predates these corrections, with the final word on the front flap ending in “age” without a capital letter.

Rarity of first paperback printing: ★★★☆☆
Rarity of first hardback printing: ★★★★☆
Rarity of second hardback printing: ★★★★★