Scholastic has announced plans to release the U.S. hardcover edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling on June 2, three months ahead of its originally scheduled September publication. Chamber of Secrets will have a first printing of 250,000 copies, as it is the much-anticipated sequel to Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a phenomenon in both its native England as well as in the U.S. Scholastic's American edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Sept. 1998) currently boasts 350,000 copies in print.
Scholastic also announced plans to publish Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in Rowling's proposed seven-volume series, in October 1999, closely trailing the British publication of that title by Bloomsbury in July. This new publication schedule is significant in light of the extraordinary U.S. demand for the Harry Potter books. Bloomsbury released Chamber of Secrets in July 1998. Individual readers and several booksellers in the States, eager to obtain the second title before its American release, had secured copies via online booksellers, foreign distributors and trips to England.
Of the change in publication date, Barbara Marcus, executive v-p at Scholastic, said, "We had been talking about moving up the publication for a while, but we really felt we could not change the date until we had finalized our acquisition of books three and four."
Beyond book three, Marcus said that for now, plans are to bring out one new Harry Potter hardcover book each fall. "We'll try to get closer and closer to the British publication for obvious reasons," she said. "It makes life much easier."
