Chair enthusiasts are currently salivating over an anonymous private collector's recent haul: the chair used by J.K. Rowling while writing the first two Harry Potter books. The chair was auctioned in New York on Wednesday for a crisp $394,000, according toMashable. The chair, one of four "mismatched chairs" given to Rowling for her former residence in Edinburgh, destroyed analysts' predictions at the Heritage Auctions event.
James Gannon of Heritage Auctions described the oak chair as crucial in Rowling crafting "two of the most important books of the modern era," a statement that’s pretty difficult to argue against. Gerald Gray, the seller, plans to donate 10 percent of his earnings to Rowling's Lumos charity and hopes the new owner will display the chair "in a museum or theme park."
Though she's presumably writing from the comfort of nicer chairs these days, J.K. Rowling is still no stranger to penning a classic of modern literature. Just last month, Rowling broke down the impact of Native American wizards in herfirst History of Magic in North America story. "The wizarding world you thought you knew is much larger than you imagined," Rowling teased ahead of the short's debut. History of Magic, of course, serves as a hype-builder ahead of the November release of the film adaptation of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:
