Author J.K. Rowling, shown here at the British premiere of the movie Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix in 2007, has announced that The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be available to Harry Potter fans in December. (Ian West/Associated Press)

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book of five fairy tales by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, will go on sale on Dec. 4.

Rowling and The Children's High Level Group, a British charity that Rowling co-founded to help vulnerable children throughout Europe, announced Thursday that they hope to raise more than $8 million Cdn for the charity from sales of the book.

Rowling has signed over royalties to the work to the charity.

There will be three editions of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and it will be published by Bloomsbury in Britain and by Scholastic in the U.S. They will both produce editions that will sell for about $14, featuring additional commentaries on each fairy tale from Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of the fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and an introduction by Rowling.

Amazon will also produce a 100,000-copy leather-bound collector's edition priced at about $101, which will try to replicate the look of the original handwritten tales.

Rowling initially wrote and illustrated seven copies of the book. She gave six away as gifts and one was bought by Amazon at an auction last December for more than $4 million.

"There was understandable disappointment among Harry Potter fans when only one copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was offered to the public last December," Rowling said in Thursday's announcement.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in the series, as a gift left by Dumbledore to Harry's friend Hermione, and provides clues that help destroy Harry's nemesis Lord Voldemort.

Rowling, whose seven Harry Potter books have sold more than 400 million copies and have been translated into 64 languages, wrote the Beedle tales last year after finishing the final Potter book.

She has called it her goodbye to a world she lived in for 17 years.