A very special signed Harry Potter book

Some books are important because of what they are. Others become important because of where they have been, who held them, and the small traces of history they still carry.

This copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone belongs firmly to the second category. It's a book  that tells a story about Bloomsbury’s earliest belief in Harry Potter.

The book is inscribed by J.K. Rowling to “Katrina” and is additionally signed by Rosamund Walker, now Rosamund de la Hey, then a key member of Bloomsbury’s children’s marketing team. Beneath the signatures, Katrina herself added explanatory notes in a child’s hand, identifying the signatories as “Joanne Rowling (Author)” and “Rosalond Walker (Puplisher)”.

Those misspellings are not flaws. They are part of the magic of this copy. They preserve the immediate perspective of the ten-year-old girl who received the book, at the very moment when Harry Potter was still at the beginning of its journey.

Katrina’s own annotations turn this from a signed copy into a deeply personal historical object.

A young judge at a decisive moment

In 1997, the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize became one of the first major turning points in the history of Harry Potter. The shortlists were selected by adult panels, but the final winners were chosen by schoolchildren. Katrina Farrant, a pupil at Coalway Junior School in Gloucestershire, was one of the official Young Judges for the 9–11 age category.

Her response to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was enthusiastic, immediate and wonderfully childlike:

“Harry Potter is a spectacular book. You start it and you can not put it down. I know, because my mum kept telling me off because every night I was using up the electricity very LATE! I showed Harry to my dad and he’s reading it now. It’s for all ages and it’s BRILLIANT.”

Katrina Farrant, Age 10

That review did not disappear into a school file or a forgotten prize report. Katrina’s words were later printed on millions of copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Alongside a quotation from fellow young judge Tom El-Shawk, her review became one of only two identifiable Smarties Young Judges’ endorsements to enter the published history of Harry Potter.

The Smarties victory

J.K. Rowling won the 1997 Nestlé Smarties Book Prize on 18 November 1997. As part of the prize’s tradition, the winning author then visited the class of young judges. On the evidence presently available, Rowling’s visit to Coalway Junior School most likely took place the following week, between 24 and 28 November 1997.

Rosamund de la Hey later recalled that she accompanied Rowling to the school visit, where Rowling gave a reading, answered questions from the children and signed copies at the end.

“I took Jo to her school visit where she gave a reading and answered questions from the children. At the end, she signed copies and, rather to my embarrassment, the children (who I think thought me her bodyguard!) asked me to sign too. Not something I think I ever did again from memory.”

That recollection explains the unusual presence of Rosamund Walker’s signature in this copy. It also makes the book a documented survivor from the Smarties-related school visit itself.

Rosamund Walker and Bloomsbury’s early belief

Rosamund Walker’s importance to this copy reaches further back than the school visit. She was not merely present after Harry Potter had won the Smarties Prize. She had already been one of the earliest and most energetic believers in the book inside Bloomsbury.

Nigel Newton, Bloomsbury’s founder and long-serving chief executive, later recalled that when Christopher Little, Rowling’s literary agent, submitted the opening chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Rosamund photocopied them for the editorial committee and transformed them into a makeshift scroll. She filled it with Smarties and tied it with a red ribbon, dramatizing her conviction that the book could win the Smarties Prize.

That detail gives this association copy a wonderful symmetry. The same Bloomsbury figure who had helped champion Harry Potter before publication was later present when its Smarties success was celebrated with the children who had helped choose it.

The surviving archive

The book is accompanied by Katrina Farrant’s original Smarties Young Judge certificate and the original 1997 Nestlé Smarties Book Prize winner’s bookmark, featuring Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as the winner in the 9–11 age category.

Together, these items transform the book from an important signed copy into a remarkably complete archive from the formative months of Harry Potter’s published life.

Few surviving Harry Potter artefacts connect so directly with the book’s earliest reception, Bloomsbury’s first marketing efforts, the Smarties Book Prize, and the child readers who helped turn Rowling’s debut into a national success. This copy does all of that — and it does so with the unmistakable charm of a ten-year-old girl’s own handwritten notes.