First edition of Harry Potter with annotations by JK Rowling fetches wizard £150,000 price

A first edition of the first in the Harry Potter series containing hand drawings and annotations by author JK Rowling has sold at auction for £150,000.

The copy of Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone contains around 20 of Rowling's original illustrations as well as comments scrawled in the margins.

The book, first published in 1997, which went on to make Rowling a publishing sensation, was auctioned at Sotheby's in London last night.

The sale room fell silent as two determined bidders vied for the prized edition and bidding leapt in increments of up to £25,000. The hammer finally fell, to a round of applause, on a £150,000 telephone bid.

The auction carried lots from 50 celebrated authors who had written or drawn on first editions of their work.

Other highlights included a copy of Roald Dahl's Matilda with new illustrations from Quentin Blake which sold for £30,000; while Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, fetched £18,000; Julian Barnes' Metroland went for £14,000; and Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader fetched £11,000.

Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall sold for £16,000; Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes, fetched £14,500 and Ralph Steadman’s richly illustrated Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson sold for £14,500.

The evening raised £439,200 for charity.