The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a book of children's stories by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was originally produced in a limited edition of only seven copies, each handwritten and illustrated by the author. One of them was offered for auction in late 2007 and was expected to sell for $80,000. Ultimately, it was bought for more than $3 million by Amazon.com, making the selling price the highest achieved at auction for a modern literary manuscript. The money earned at the auction of the book was donated to The Children's Voice charity campaign. The book was published for the general public about a year later, with all income earned going to the charity. "The idea came really because I wanted to thank six key people who have been very closely connected to the Harry Potter series, and these were people for whom a piece of jewelry wasn't going to cut it. So had the idea of writing them a book, a handwritten and illustrated book, just for these six people. And well, if I'm doing six I really have to do seven, and the seventh book will be for this cause, which is so close to my heart," said J. K. Rowling.