DALLAS, TX.- The only known set of unbound gathered sheets for the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, will be among the top attractions in Heritage's May 8-9 Rare Books Signature® Auction, an event that includes a wide variety of rare and important books in the fields of Americana, literature, and Science Fiction & Fantasy.

This exceptionally rare complete set of full unbound and folded imposed sheets is from the rare first issue of Rowling's landmark book published in 1997.

"These sheets are a possibly unique survival and represent the final form of the first Harry Potter book just prior to binding," says Francis Wahlgren, Heritage's International Director of Rare Books & Manuscripts. "These sheets show the imposition of the page lay-outs on both sides of each sheet, folded and gathered into 14 quires (each 16 pages), for a total of 224 pages [the complete text], before trimming and binding, and partially perforated by the printer's folding machine, with full margins preserved including printer's codes, gray scales and trim marks. They also contain quire signature numbers on outer spine folds.

"This newly discovered set of sheets is one of the very few pre-publication versions of the book to have appeared on the market, and the only known set of such sheets at this penultimate stage of production, and the first ever offered at auction — just prior to being bound and trimmed."

This remarkable and perhaps unique survival was acquired by the present owner from a private collector who obtained these sheets directly from a manager at the London printers, Clays Ltd.

These sheets are an unquestioned treasure for collectors, but are just one of six lots from the hugely popular series of books by J.K. Rowling, many of which are signed or inscribed. The list also includes, but is not limited to J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. [New York]: Arthur A. Levine Books, [1998], J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. [New York]: Arthur A. Levine Books, [1999] and J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. [New York]: Arthur A. Levin Books, [1999].

Also offered is a Gutenberg Bible Leaf [Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg and Johann Fust, c.1455.], which comes from the Trier City Library copy of the Gutenberg Bible, which has had one of the most complex survival histories of any other copy. This copy is now identified as the separated and incomplete two volumes, forming a single copy, the original owner of which was probably the ancient Benedictine abbey of St. Maximin of Trier. The largest fragment of Vol. I of the Trier copy survived to re-emerge only in 1926 and is now at the University of Mons. Vol. II (containing this leaf) was discovered in the 1820s in a farm building outside the city by the Trier librarian "who just managed to save it from destruction and who recovered some of its leaves from children's school-books on which they were used as covers" (Scribner's). This volume was sold by the city of Trier in the 1930s and came to America, passing through the hands of Rosenbach, Arthur Houghton and Scribner's Bookshop. The New Testament leaves were dispersed and sold to George Poole, whose collection went to the Lilly Library. Of the remaining leaves, some are in the Scheide Library at Princeton, the 12 leaves comprising the book of Daniel were sold in the Garden Ltd. sale in 1989.A rare printing of the Declaration of Independence that was printed in The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New-Jersey Weekly Advertiser is an exceedingly rare early newspaper printing of the document that is the founding document of the United States. Apart from broadsides and public readings, news of the Declaration of Independence was disseminated almost immediately via local newspapers, starting with the July 6 edition of The Pennsylvania Evening Post. This printing in The Pennsylvania Ledger was just the 13th newspaper publication of the Declaration, preceded by five other Philadelphia newspapers (one in German), three from Maryland, three from New York, and one from Connecticut. The document later appeared in 16 additional colonial newspapers over the next nine days.

The auction features several science fiction highlights, including but not limited to:

A brilliant copy of Aldous Huxley. Brave New World. London: Chatto & Windus, 1932 in a vibrant dust jacketAn inscribed copy of Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955

A fine inscribed presentation set of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, his story of new frontiers, futuristic technology, mathematical sociology and mankind's speculative future in science fiction and history; the trilogy comprises Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation

A superlative copy of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye