Potter's "Prince" Arriving in July

Harry Potter's new Prince finally has his coronation date.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the penultimate adventure in J.K. Rowling's epic fantasy series, will hit book stores in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa on July 16, according to an announcement from her publishers.

"We are delighted to announce the publication date," says a joint statement from Scholastic President Barbara Marcus and Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton. "J.K. Rowling has written a brilliant story that will dazzle her fans in a marvelous book that takes the series to yet greater heights. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince delivers all the excitement and wonder of her best-selling Harry Potter novels."

Of course, as every Muggle who has followed Rowling's posts on her Website probably knows by now, the titular half-blood prince refers to is neither Harry nor his nemesis, the evil Lord Voldemort.

The latest tome will pick up where the last one, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, left off--with the lightning-scarred boy magician entering his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and encountering a new dastardly plot by You-Know-Who to take over the world and destroy the wiz kid.

After countless days in front of her computer "writing, rewriting, and taking the occasional break to bang my head on my desk in frustration or else rub my hands together in fiendish glee"--as Rowline vented in a post dated Dec. 10--the celebrated British author confirmed that she has finally finished the long-awaited sixth installment. As a result, Rowling decided to spring news of the publishing date now as an early holiday treat for devoted Potterphiles.

"I know you all expected it to happen on Christmas Day, but I was sure that those of you who celebrate Christmas have better things to do on the day itself than fight your way into my study, whereas those of you who don't celebrate Christmas would definitely prefer not to wait until the 25th," Rowling said.

Rowling, 39, noted that being pregnant with her third child has not disrupted work on Prince. On the contrary, she added that she's had enough time "to tinker with the manuscript to my satisfaction, and I am happy as I have ever been with the end result. I only hope you feel it was worth the wait when you finally read it."

While Harry is expected to survive his latest test--after all, Rowling has promised a total of seven books in the series--not so for another character in the book, says the author. As in Phoenix, death will once again make an appearance in Half-Blood Prince.

It took Rowling less time to write Prince than Phoenix. Fans were forced to wait three grueling years between the release of book four, 2000's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Phoenix.

No word whether Half-Blood Prince will top Phoenix's mammoth 870 pages, but it is expected to follow all its predecessors--including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--and smash sales records worldwide.

Such is the power of Potter that news of a release date gave a boost to the London stock market on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the next book in the series to be adapted to the big screen, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, started filming last June with Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell at the helm and Ralph Fiennes playing Voldemort. It's set to hit theaters in June. All told, the first three films in Warner Bros. Potter franchise have grossed a Gringott-sized $2.6 billion worldwide.