Scholastic Offices 'A Madhouse' After Harry Potter Book Leaks to Web

"It's a madhouse here." So quoth a flack at Scholastic, the publishers of the eagerly awaited Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series by J.K. Rowling.

With three days, six hours, 26 minutes, and 12 seconds until the book goes on sale in bookstores midnight on Friday night, a set of photographs depicting each page of the book was uploaded to the bittorrent file-sharing site, Pirate Bay.

Salon blogger Farhad Manjoo confirmed today on his blog that all 759 pages are there, and legible.

Scholastic is presently preparing a statement-but had little else to say about the event.

How their system of security for the book--so tight even Dick Cheney's remote location was less secure--was violated will no doubt be the source of some investigation over the coming days.

Ed note: Could not help noticing that the book pictured appears to be the American edition-so the problem seems to be here in the U.S. and not in the U.K.

We'll update with Scholastic's statement shortly.