J.K. Rowling has completed her first book since she finished her blockbusting series of Harry Potter novels which have sold 400 million copies world-wide.

Fans hoping to lay their hands on the latest work are, however, doomed to disappointment as only seven copies will ever be printed, and only one of those has been put up for sale.

The book - a collection of five wizarding fairy stories entitled "The Tales of Beedle the Bard” - has been handwritten and illustrated by the author herself. To add to its rarity value, the seven copies have been bound in brown morocco leather and mounted with silver and semi-precious stones.

Ms Rowling said today that one copy will be sold to raise money for a children’s charity, while the others have been given away as gifts.

The volume will be auctioned at Sotheby’s on December 13 with a starting price of £30,000. Proceeds will go to The Children’s Voice, a charity that helps vulnerable children across Europe.

“The Tales of Beedle the Bard" is mentioned in the final Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", in which it plays an important role in the plot. A copy is left as a gift by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore to Harry’s friend Hermione, and provides clues that help to destroy the evil Lord Voldemort.

Ms Rowling said that writing it had been a kind of therapy. “’The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ is really a distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I have loved and lived in for 17 years,” she said.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the seventh and final installment in Harry’s adventures, was published in July. The globally-renowned books have been translated into 64 languages.

Yesterday Ms Rowling and the makers of the Harry Potter films filed a lawsuit against RDR Books, a small US publisher, that plans to bring out a companion volume based on the Harry Potter Lexicon fan Web site.

Ms Rowling has said that she intends to produce her own encyclopedia of the wizarding world, and that the book would infringe on her intellectual property rights.

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