SHANGHAI, July 23 -- MORE than 300 people stayed up all night on two Shanghai sidewalks - and not one became bored.

Well, they had plenty to talk about as they have at least two things in common - a love of boy-wizard Harry Potter and the quest to be first in line for their Holy Grail of fiction, the last installment in the seven-book series.

The city queues began to form at 9pm on Friday at the entrance to Shanghai Book City and the adjacent Shanghai Foreign Languages Book Store for the 7am Saturday official nationwide launch of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

Ou Mengna, a Tongji University student, said she and two room-mates were too over-excited to sleep and spent the whole night talking about Harry Potter and other characters, wizards and muggles alike.

The story was the same in Beijing, Xinhua news agency reported, with camp-outs overnight on Friday and thousands swarming into book stores on Saturday morning.

More than 200 copies were sold in the Wangfujing Book Store in the capital within 40 minutes.

The Beijing Book Building sold 2,301 copies as 6pm on Saturday.

"The previous versions did very well here but we expect the seventh book to create a selling record for the series," said Yang Xinyuan, a manager at the Beijing Book Building.

Three performers from the musical "Mama Mia" pre-booked 18 copies of "Deathly Hallows" from Shanghai's Book City, and turned up early to collect their copies before leaving the city. Londoner Tasha Sheridan, who plays Sophie in the hit show, said the Harry Potter books are must-reads.

Zhang Ying, 15, from Anhui Province, said she will have to read the book with the help of an English-Chinese dictionary, but "just can't wait until the Chinese version is published."

All fans interviewed in Shanghai said they refused the teasers available on the Internet.

"We insist on finding out Harry's fate by reading to the last page," said Ou.

More than 1,600 copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" were sold on Saturday at Shanghai Book City, and more than 2,000 at the Foreign Languages store.

The Popular Book Mall, another major city retailer, said more than 1,000 copies had been pre-booked. "I think it's the first time local readers have fancied a foreign-language novel so much," said He Qunxing, an official with the store's planning department.

Chinese chat rooms were running hot on the Internet yesterday, and the reviews were mixed. Some liked the ending; others thought author J.K. Rowling "too cruel."

"I just can't believe she kills off Fred," said a Netizen, Xueqian, on hoolee8.com, a popular Chinese Harry Potter fan forum.

Three editions of "Deathly Hallows" are available in the city, the United Kingdom adult edition, the UK children's version and the United States edition.

Prices are 170 yuan (US$22.45) for the two UK editions and 218 yuan for the US version.