Potter fans buy 15 copies a second

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Bookshops around the country opened their doors at midnight last night to Potter-maniacs who had queued in their thousands in some places to be the first to get their hands on JK Rowling's seventh and final book in the series.

WHSmith opened 400 of its stores across the UK overnight and said that it had sold 15 books every second - beating the previous sales record of 13 books per second held by the previous Rowling volume, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Rachel Russell, the company's Books Business Unit Director, said: "Despite the wet weather it was a fantastic night with Harry fans all around the country rushing into our stores to get their copy of the book hot off the shelves."

Waterstones spokesman Jon Howells described the speed at which fans bought the books as unprecedented. "There ain't nothing like that in book-selling history," he said.

At midnight the bookshop chain had more than 250,000 eager Potter-philes at the doors of its shops across the UK and sold over 100,000 copies in the first two hours.

At the Waterstones flagship store in London more than 7,000 people attended the midnight launch and while exact figures were not yet available, Mr Howells said that "several thousand" books were sold.

Supermarket chain Asda, which is selling the book for £5 instead of the recommended retail price of £17.99, said that it sold half of its entire Deathly Hallows stock overnight. Asda said they sold 250,000 copies between midnight and 9am, the same number that the last Harry Potter book sold in 24 hours on its launch day.

Early on Saturday morning Potter fan Kathryn Longwill, 22, was one of the lucky internet winners who were allowed into the Natural History Museum to get a book signed by the author. Miss Longwill said meeting Rowling was "a dream come true".

Around 100 people gathered outside the museum gates hoping for a glimpse of Rowling before her midnight reading from the book. She has confessed she broke down and "absolutely howled" when writing the final instalment.