Prince Harry’s Memoir ‘Spare’ Becomes Fastest-selling Non-fiction Book, Records Sale of 400,000 on Debut

Prince Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’ has become the UK’s fastest-selling nonfiction book ever registering a sale of 400,000 on the first day of launch.

The controversial memoir has made headlines in the weeks leading up to its publication, finally hitting the shelves on Tuesday.

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“We always knew this book would fly but it is exceeding even our most bullish expectations,” Larry Finlay, the managing director of Transworld Penguin Random House, said. The publisher said it had sold 400,000 copies so far across hardback, e-book and audio formats.

“As far as we know, the only books to have sold more in their first day are those starring the other Harry [Potter],” he added.

Shops across UK reopened at 12 am on Tuesday for the official release of the memoir, which was leaked and also sold early by some book shops in Spain last Thursday.

The autobiography saw long queues of fans outside bookstores to get their hands on the controversial memoir.

But the contents of Harry’s ghost-written memoir, available in 16 languages and as an audiobook, have already been widely leaked after copies mistakenly went on sale early in Spain.

Some UK bookshops staged Harry Potter-style midnight openings for the biggest royal publication since the late princess of Wales collaborated with Andrew Morton for “Diana: Her True Story” in 1992.

Spare is the latest revelatory offering from Harry and his wife Meghan since they stepped down from royal duties in 2020 and moved to California to forge a new life, and follows their Netflix documentary last month.

The book contains an explosive claim from Harry that William physically attacked him as they argued about Meghan. However, the royal family has not commented on the book or the interviews and is unlikely to do so.

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It also gives an account of how he lost his virginity, an admission of teenage drug use and a claim he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving in Afghanistan with the British military — which earned him a rebuke from both the Taliban and UK veterans.

The book comes on the back of the six-hour Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan”, in which the couple again aired their grievances with the royal family and the British media.

The content of the book was leaked last Thursday when its Spanish language edition also went on sale by mistake in some bookshops in Spain.

Harry, the younger of King Charles III’s sons with Diana, Princess of Wales, was born in 1984, two years after Prince William.

His 2018 marriage to US actress Meghan Markle triggered a feud with his family that eventually saw him leaving royal duties and moving to California.

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