For a minute there in 2012, it seemed unfathomable that any book would beat selling 664,478 copies in a single week, a record held by E L James' Fifty Shades of Grey. Then again, one should never doubt J.K. Rowling's ability to smash records.
In the United Kingdom, the script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has already exceeded sales of 680,000 copies in just three days, making it the fastest-selling book this decade, or since the last Harry Potter book was released. In the United States, the script has sold 2 million print copies in 48 hours, according to publisher Scholastic. In both the U.S. and the U.K., it appears The Cursed Child's sales will fall short of the 2007 sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which sold 8.3 million in the U.S. and 2.7 million in the U.K. in the first 24 hours.
"After just two days' sales, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is already our biggest-selling hardback since Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in 2009," Waterstones buying director Kate Skipper said in a statement. "By the end of this first week, we expect to exceed The Lost Symbol sales and to match the lifetime sales of our bestselling script book ever, An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley. There's no doubt about it; this will be our biggest book of the year."
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Rowling said she does not plan to write any more Harry Potter stories, although three movie spinoffs, starting with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, are in the works. There may be more records for Potter to smash yet.
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