The Portsmouth City Library wants its Harry Potter first edition back, along with the £42,500 recent sales price, says the BBC. The book in question is a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, one of 500 hardback editions that were distributed at the time to libraries and schools. It "went missing" (a euphemism for stolen, perhaps?) in 1997, only a month after it was published. The library had three first editions. It sold two in a fund-raising for library service, but the third one couldn't be found.
It made its way to California and was sold by Texas-based Heritage Auctions, to a buyer in Tennessee. If the library is successful, either in retrieving the lost item or receiving the money, it could set an interesting precedent for other libraries worldwide.