The iterations of Potter fraud and imitation here are, in fact, so copious they must be peeled back layer by layer. There are the books, like the phony seventh novel, that masquerade as works written by Ms. Rowling. There are the copies of the genuine items, in both English and Chinese, scanned, reprinted, bound and sold for a fraction of the authorized texts. As in some other countries, there are the unauthorized translations of real Harry Potter books, as well as books published under the imprint of major Chinese publishing houses, about which the publishers themselves say they have no knowledge. And there are the novels by budding Chinese writers hoping to piggyback on the success of the series - sometimes only to have their fake Potters copied by underground publishers who, naturally, pay them no royalties.

No one can say with any certainty what the full tally is, but there are easily a dozen unauthorized Harry Potter titles on the market here already, and that is counting only bound versions that are sold on street corners and can even be found in school libraries. Still more versions exist online. These include Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince, a creation whose name in Chinese closely resembles the title of the genuine sixth book by Ms. Rowling, as well as pure inventions that include Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon, Harry Potter and the Chinese Empire, Harry Potter and the Young Heroes, Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon, and Harry Potter and the Big Funnel.

Some borrow little more than the names of Ms. Rowling's characters, lifting plots from other well-known authors, like J. R. R. Tolkien, or placing the famously British protagonist in plots lifted from well-known kung-fu epics and introducing new characters from Chinese literary classics like Journey to the West. Here, the global Harry Potter publishing phenomenon has mutated into something altogether Chinese: a combination of remarkable imagination and startling industriousness, all placed in the service of counterfeiting, literary fraud and copyright violation.

Wang Lili, editor of the China Braille Publishing House, which published Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll in 2002, one of the Chinese knockoffs, said: "We published the book out of a very common incentive. Harry Potter was so popular that we wanted to enjoy the fruits of its widely accepted publicity in China." The attitude reflected in Ms. Wang's comment goes a long way toward explaining not only the explosion of unauthorized Harry Potter literature in China, but also the much larger problem of rampant piracy in China, where travelers can find six different knockoffs of Viagra, without prescription, on display at airport drugstores, and where bootleg DVDs, fake Picassos, and even near-identical copies of famous-brand automobiles are widely available.

But the threat of spoilers hasn't ruined the party. Advance orders for the latest book have broken records and release celebrations are on tap across the country. "We expect the largest crowd in history to be at our stores Friday night at the stroke of midnight," said Barnes & Noble Chief Executive Stephen Riggio in an interview.

Scholastic expects to break both printing and sales records with the seventh book. The company said it has printed 12 million copies in the U.S., surpassing records held by the sixth book, which had a first-print run of 10.8 million in 2005. More than 6.9 million copies of the book were sold in the first 24 hours. "A very large first printing for a children's book would be 50,000," said Maureen O'Connell, chief financial officer for Scholastic. "This is unprecedented."

In years that the books are published, Harry Potter accounts for between 8% and 10% of Scholastic's $2 billion in revenues, O'Connell said. In years without a new book, sales account for less than 1% of revenues, she added.

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Meanwhile, Harry Potter book purchases are "outpacing the sale of adult books, even in this age of the Internet, MySpace, Facebook and video games," Barnes & Noble CEO Riggio said. "It has inspired kids to read the whole series, and it has made them more interested in reading." Barnes & Noble has taken 1.3 million advance orders for the seventh book, and the chain expects Saturday to be the company's biggest non-holiday sales day ever, Riggio said.

The author said she was "staggered" that papers including The New York Times had printed reviews ahead of the novel's publication on 21 July. The author said the information was in "complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers". UK publishers Bloomsbury said spoilers remained "unauthenticated". Some books have been sent out early in the US. The book's US publisher Scholastic has sued online retailer DeepDiscount.com for breaking the strict embargo by dispatching a number of copies.

The book's contents have been the subject of intense speculation The novel has also appeared on auction site eBay, while pictures of what appeared to be pages from the new book have appeared on the internet. Bloomsbury said it was "dismayed" to learn about the early sales. But internet spoilers had not come from the few copies sold ahead of the official publication, it insisted. The strict embargo was being "enforced unflinchingly and without exception" by publishers in 93 countries, the company added.

Rowling said the US newspaper reviews would particularly affect children "who wanted to reach Harry's final destination by themselves, in their own time". "I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry's last adventure for fans," she added. We tried very, very hard to give away the absolute bare minimum of the plot

Rowling's statement follows an earlier message on her website, in which she said: "Let's all, please, ignore the misinformation popping up on the web and in the press. "I'd like to ask everyone who calls themselves a Harry Potter fan to help preserve the secrecy of the plot for all those who are looking forward to reading the book at the same time on publication day. "In a very short time you will know everything!"

Scholastic reports that they "recently learned that some individuals have received copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows through the mail, beginning on Tuesday, July 17th, as a result of a breach of the on-sale agreement by the distributor, Levy Home Entertainment, and shipments made by DeepDiscount.com, a customer of that distributor. We are taking immediate legal action against DeepDiscount.com and Levy Home Entertainment. The number of copies shipped is around one one-hundredth of one percent of the total U.S. copies." (That's 1,200 copies if you do the math.)

They add, in vain, this extraordinary (and silly) request: "We are also making a direct appeal to the Harry Potter fans who bought their books from DeepDiscount.com and may receive copies early requesting that they keep the packages hidden until midnight on July 21st.

That shipping error may explain how, following our reports from earlier the week, one bittorrent site has photographs of the entire Harry Potter manuscript posted. TorrentFreak describes the posting, and offers spoilers on a separate page for those who want them.

A little less than two months ago, Mr. Dale, the veteran Broadway actor turned voice of Harry Potter, finished recording the audio version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment in the colossally successful series by J. K. Rowling. So that means that he knows how it ends.

His grandchildren, who visited from England after he completed the recording, literally twisted his arms trying to get him to divulge a clue. His wife is still in the dark. Everywhere he goes, people want to know What He Knows. "It's a surprise ending," he said on Friday, during an interview in his Park Avenue co-op. "Let's say that." Gee, thanks. It is not quite four days until Harry Potter's legions of fans can procure a copy of Deathly Hallows - in hardcover, CD or cassette - and find out for themselves exactly who does what to whom. Mr. Dale signed a confidentiality agreement so that he will not breathe a word of the plot. But after spending eight years creating more than 200 voices for all the characters in the Harry Potter books, Mr. Dale really believes that readers - and listeners - should discover the end for themselves.

"For those people who say, 'C'mon, Jim, how does it end?,' it's like parents who say: 'There's a surprise gift for you in the next room. It's a bicycle,'" said Mr. Dale, whose apartment could easily make a Hogwarts professor feel at home with its eclectic collections of Victorian cake decorations, pewter plates and Persian swords. "Let the child find out for himself by opening this gift."

Because if there's one thing we like more than explosions, it's surprises. And even though 8 out of 10 of us want him to die, we know in our hearts that he won't.

And that's because Ms. Rowling wouldn't dare.

She can’t whack Harry because there are rules that must be followed when it comes to how one ends a grand mythology. Good triumphs over evil. Hope overcomes despair. Paper covers rock. Harry wins. Voldemort loses. The Ewoks sing.

And this is precisely why Harry has to die.

Because it will be tragic. And emotional. And surprising. But most of all ... it will be fair.

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So yes. Sorry, kiddies. I hope Harry buys the farm. Even though I know he won't. However... Maybe if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tossed one final spell at Harry? Like a mega-Avada Kedavra curse that nobody had ever survived? And if Harry, like, did some kinda Matrix-slow-motion move and used his wand to deflect? And then his opponent like totally exploded everywhere into a thousand pieces of reptilian flesh? If, like, Harry blew on the end of his wand and said, "I told you not to curse, Voldemort." That'd be fine, too.

At the chain stores, Barnes & Noble and Border's, and at Amazon.com, Harry Potter 7 is the largest pre-ordered book in history. Ever since Goblet of Fire, fourth in the series, was launched at midnight July 8, 2000, booksellers have orchestrated increasingly elaborate book parties.

For Cammie Mannino of Halfway Down the Stairs Children's Book Shop in Rochester, Mich., Potter 7 is a mixed blessing: "Getting children to read is the most divine thing you can come up with. Then there's me as a bookseller — phew, here we go again. It's both of those."

Danielle Marshall of Powell's, an independent bookstore in Portland, Ore., says: "I can't tell whether I'm relieved or devastated, and that's on a personal and a sales level." There are "any number of publishers who are ready and waiting to fill the void left by Harry Potter," says Marshall. "If I had a nickel for every book that has been marketed to me as 'this will fill the bill,' I would be drinking in St. Tropez."

Of course, this isn't really the end of Harry Potter. Says Barnes & Noble's Riggio: "We don't look at this as saying goodbye. As each new generation comes of age, it will discover these books. And the great thing about that is, all seven books will be in front of them."

I remember the day I read it....the office was empty. On my desk I saw a manila envelope. The cover letter was from an agent I'd never heard of. British. Said the enclosed manuscript was "the next great children's book, a Goodnight Moon for preteens." I laughed. My father, who had also been a book editor before turning to taxidermy, had passed on Goodnight Moon, and he and I often laughed at that.

I read the first few chapters of this so-called manuscript and, frankly, thought it drivel. February, perhaps March of the next year, I received a call from J.K. Rowling herself. She asked if I had had a chance to read her manuscript. I'm always embarrassed when fledgling writers get me on the phone. Most are sad, lonely people with no real means of income.

I said I enjoyed her work a great deal, but that it didn't meet our needs at this time - the standard industry brushoff. There was a pause and I thought the line had gone dead when I heard laughing. "Mr. Wortham," she said with a light British accent. "I was calling as a courtesy, actually. To tell you that I sold the book. To Scholastic. For..." The line went dead. Or perhaps I passed out. I forget which.

At lunch some time later I overheard our chief executive talking about the success of the Rowling book. So I happened to mention, with a chuckle, that we'd had a chance to buy it.

Why is it that one remembers a long pause? "Chief?" I said, though to this day I don't know why, as no one called him that. "You what?" he asked, his voice trembling slightly. "May I speak with you in my office?"

She said she had mixed feelings about ending the saga of the boy wizard. "I am dreading it in some ways. I do love writing the books and it is going to be a shock, a profound shock to me," she said. "Even though I have known it is coming for the past 15 years, I have known that the series would end, I think it will still be a shock."

Before she sits down to start the seventh book, Rowling said she would take time off to spend with her 6-month-old daughter Mackenzie Jean. "I have already done some work on it and I am still doing little bits and pieces, but realistically I have still got a very young baby, so I think probably next year I will do the proper writing of book seven."

As for writing non-Harry Potter fiction, she hinted she might consider a pen name. "A fake name is very attractive," Rowling said. "I'll have less pressure and I can write any old thing I want and people won't be clamoring for it and that might be nice."

Customer Mandy Muldoon said she simply spotted a stack of the highly anticipated books on a shelf and bought one. She has since promised to return it. Shop manager Christine Ekblom said she believed it was the only copy sold. "They were pulled off an hour after they were put on the shelves. It was a mistake," she said. A gag order was issued by a Canadian court this week after 14 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were inadvertently sold at a supermarket near Vancouver.

The book is due for release this Saturday and will be unveiled at the stroke of midnight at special parties held at bookshops worldwide. Ms Muldoon’s husband, Mike, said the family would return the book to the publisher, although his stepson had admitted reading two pages. "We’re going to do the right thing," he said. "We don’t want to ruin it for other kids and take away from the experience of everyone reading it together." Kyle Good, a Scholastic publishing spokeswoman, said: "This is the first early sale we have heard of in the US and the family is returning it." On Friday, Scholastic will hold a ceremony to unveil the first signed copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – transported to the US on the QE2 in a gigantic locked trunk. The book will be presented to a public library.