Online retail giant Amazon bought one of seven original copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, hand-crafted by J.K. Rowling, at auction last December for more than $4 million Cdn. (Sang Tan/Associated Press)

Blockbuster author J.K. Rowling is giving Harry Potter fans — and booksellers — an early gift for the holidays with Thursday's release of her book The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Rowling is scheduled to launch her new book Thursday with a reading and tea party for school children at Edinburgh's National Library of Scotland.

The Scottish author is also donating her royalties for the Potter-related tale — a collection of fables that figured largely in her series-ending novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last year — to the Children's High Level Group charity benefiting institutionalized Eastern European children.

The book is penned as a "translation from the original runes" by Potter character Hermione Granger and comes complete with notes in the margins by Hogwarts wizarding school headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

Created as gift for friends, charity

Rowling initially created seven hand-crafted, leather-bound, silver and jewel-studded copies of the book, with her illustrations accompanying the text, as a personal project. She gave six copies to friends closely connected to her Potter books — including one to her first editor and another to a vice president of her U.S. publisher Scholastic — while a seventh was auctioned for charity.

Online retail giant Amazon paid more than $4 million Cdn for the rare tome at a London auction in Dec. 2007.

The National Library of Scotland and the New York Public Library will display borrowed original copies of the book (from Rowling's first editor Barry Cunningham and from Scholastic's to Arthur Levine, respectively) for the next month.

Bestselling author worldwide

Rowling's seven Harry Potter books have sold more than 400 million copies and have been translated into 64 languages.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is being published in more than 20 countries with a global print run of nearly eight million.

Though the title has not generated the same pre-sale buzz as her Harry Potter novels, some British booksellers are still predicting that it could rocket to the top of bestseller lists.

"We expect it to come straight in at No. 1 and is very likely to be our No. 1 book this Christmas," said Jon Howells of British book chain Waterstone's.

"It's in with a fighting chance of being the best-selling book of the year, even though there are only a few weeks to go," he said.

"This is J.K. Rowling. None of the usual rules apply."

With files from the Associated Press