The First Translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

The Italian Edition by Salani Editore

The very first translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published on 29 May 1998 by Salani Editore, a publishing house based in Milan. This edition holds a special place in Harry Potter history—not only as the first translation to appear, but also as the first Harry Potter book published outside the United Kingdom, and the first by a publisher other than Bloomsbury. Notably, it preceded the American edition by over three months; Scholastic’s version didn’t arrive until September 1998.

This Italian edition has become famous among collectors, largely because of its iconic dust jacket. The original version of the cover depicted Harry without glasses, with auburn hair and no visible lightning-bolt scar. While the latter two details were corrected before the first edition went to print, the absence of glasses remained. J.K. Rowling felt this visual choice implied that a hero couldn’t wear glasses. Salani quickly responded, and the dust jacket was revised for later printings to show Harry wearing his glasses.

A limited number of first edition copies were also issued with a red promotional band wrapped around the book. This band featured a quote from Book Trust Scotland, translated into Italian: “Mystery, magic, a spectacular cast of characters and a perfect plot: this is the debut of a wonderful writer and storyteller.”

With a first print run of 20,000 copies, the book isn’t especially rare in terms of availability—first editions frequently appear on sites like eBay.it. However, truly fine copies with the original red band intact are much more difficult to find. Such copies, in excellent condition, are currently valued between £2,500 and £3,500. Despite its historical significance, its status as the first ever Harry Potter translation—and the first edition published outside the UK—remains surprisingly little known, even among collectors. In fact, Massimo Battista, author of Collezionare Harry Potter (the Italian bibliography), was unaware of this fact at the time of publication.

Understanding the First Edition and Dust Jacket Variants

The first printing of Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale can be identified by a copyright page that contains no mention of reprints and a colophon stating the book was completed in May 1998.

The most famous feature of the first printing is its dust jacket—specifically, the version that shows Harry without his glasses. As mentioned earlier, Rowling objected to this depiction, and it was later revised. The second version of the dust jacket introduced glasses, updated the title font, and changed the author’s credit from “Joanne K. Rowling” to “J.K. Rowling.”

However, there remains confusion around the publication history of these jackets. Battista’s Collezionare Harry Potterclaims that both versions—the “without glasses” and the revised “with glasses”—were published on the same day, 29 May 1998, implying the updated jacket was printed in time for the book's release. Battista later revised this position, stating that 20,000 copies of the “without glasses” version were sent to bookstores and that Salani later replaced the dust jackets with the revised “with glasses” version following Rowling’s objections. In this version of events, the books themselves remained the same; only the dust jackets were swapped.

I have not found any direct evidence in the books themselves to support either claim. In my years of searching—including reviewing dozens of copies across various listings and sellers—I have never encountered a first-printing book with the “with glasses” dust jacket. Dust jackets are easy to swap, of course, but in my experience and research, I’ve yet to find even a single confirmed example of this pairing.

The earliest “with glasses” dust jacket I’ve located comes from a second printing, with a copyright page that reads: “Prima edizione: maggio 1998” (First edition: May 1998) and “Prima ristampa: ottobre 1999” (First reprint: October 1999). This suggests that the second printing—with the updated jacket—wasn’t produced until October 1999, more than a year after the original release.

That said, the Italian print dates aren’t always consistent. For example, the fourth printing inaccurately lists the first edition as October 1998, though this is corrected in later editions (e.g., the seventh printing again states May 1998 as the original date). So while the copyright pages offer clues, they aren’t entirely reliable.

Conclusions

Without an official statement from Salani Editore and in the absence of clear evidence from the books themselves, the timeline around the dust jacket changes remains somewhat unclear. Based on all the research I’ve done—including first-hand examination of available copies and studying patterns in listings and print data—I believe that only the “without glasses” version was released at the time of first publication in May 1998. The revised “with glasses” version, featuring new artwork and typographic updates, likely debuted with the second printing in October 1999.

I remain open to revising this position should compelling new evidence come to light. For now, however, I find the claim that both dust jacket versions were released simultaneously unlikely. Publishers often make retrospective claims that are difficult to verify, and even long-standing houses like Scholastic or Bloomsbury have struggled to provide accurate publication data for editions released over two decades ago.

If you happen to own a first printing of the Italian edition with the “with glasses” dust jacket—and acquired it that way originally—I would be extremely interested to hear from you. Please feel free to get in touch using the contact details below.