The 2007 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £545 million, ranking her as the 136th richest person and the thirteenth richest woman in Britain. In 2006, Forbes named Rowling the second-richest female entertainer in the world and ranked her as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007.
Name
Although she writes under the pseudonym "J. K. Rowling", pronounced like rolling, she actually has no middle name making her full name simply "Joanne Rowling". Before publishing her first book, London-based publisher, Bloomsbury feared that the target audience of young boys might be reluctant to buy books written by a female author. It requested that Rowling use two initials, rather than reveal her first name. As she had no middle name, she chose K. for Kathleen as the second initial of her pseudonym, from her paternal grandmother, Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. The name Kathleen has never been part of her real name. Following her marriage, her official legal name is Joanne Murray. She calls herself "Jo" and claims, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry".
Early life
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling née Volant on 31 July 1965 at Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. Her sister Dianne (Di) was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded almost 200 years ago by famed abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her elderly headmaster at St. Michaels, Alfred Dunn, was claimed as the inspiration for the character Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling enjoyed writing fantasy stories, which she often read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it," she recalls, "Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee".
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling completed her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evans, a reader who had been asked to review the book’s first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was handed to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected it. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from the small publisher Bloomsbury. The decision to take Rowling on was apparently largely due to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of the company’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father, and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing.
The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news. In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of one thousand copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000.
Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher’s Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: a change Rowling claims she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time.
In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.
The title of the seventh Harry Potter book was revealed 21 December 2006 to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. On 1 February 2007 Rowling wrote on a bust in her hotel room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh that she had completed the seventh book in that room on 11 January 2007. Later in February 2007, Neil Blair, a lawyer with Rowling's literary agency, announced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will not be released as an e-book, just as Rowling has not allowed the first six Potter books to be so released. The seventh and final book of the series was released on July 21, 2007 (0:00 BST) and became the fastest-selling book of all time.
All seven volumes of the "Harry Potter" series, one for each of Harry’s school years, have broken sales records. The last four have been, consecutively, the fastest-selling books in history, grossing more in their opening 24 hours than blockbuster films. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated into 65 languages.
Rowling said she is "left wing" and that there is a certain amount of "political stuff" in Harry Potter, but that "every reader will bring their own agenda to the book." Several articles have noted influences of Rowling's heroine, author Jessica Mitford, whom Rowling describes as a "self-taught socialist," and noted leftist themes in Harry Potter, like cooperation among the magical races, anti-racism, and opposition to the slavery of House elves. Rowling's three unforgivable spells—killing, torture, and enslavement—are also cited as influenced by her prior work with Amnesty International. After the publication of Deathly Hallows, Rowling responded to queries about metaphors in the books for ethnic cleansing, "Well, it is a political metaphor. But … I didn't sit down and think, 'I want to recreate Nazi Germany,' in the—in the wizarding world. Because—although there are—quite consciously overtones of Nazi Germany, there are also associations with other political situations. So I can't really single one out."
Harry Potter films
In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels for a seven-figure sum. A film version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on 16 November 2001 and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on 15 November 2002. Both were directed by Chris Columbus. The 4 June 2004 film of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by yet another new director, Mike Newell. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released on 11 July 2007. David Yates is the director, and Michael Goldenberg its screenwriter, having taken over the position from Steven Kloves. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is in pre-production, scheduled for release on 21 November 2008. David Yates will direct again, and Kloves will return to screenwrite it. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is expected to be released sometime in 2010.
In contrast to the treatment of most authors by Hollywood studios, Warner Bros took considerable notice of Rowling's desires and thoughts, as she was able to secure it in the contract. One of her principal stipulations was the films be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has been adhered to strictly. In an unprecedented move, Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the victor in the race to tie-in their products to the film series, donate $18 million to the American charity Reading is Fundamental, as well as a number of community charity programs.
After Harry Potter
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing after the publication of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She declared in a December 2005 interview that she will most likely not use a new pen name as the press would quickly discover her true identity.
In 2006, Rowling revealed that she had completed a few short stories and another children's book (a "political fairy story") about a monster, aimed at a younger audience than Harry Potter readers.
She is not planning to write an eighth Harry Potter book, but has said she will be writing an "encyclopedia" of the wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. When asked on 6 July 2007 whether she would ever write an eighth Harry Potter novel Rowling confirmed that she only ever planned to write seven books in the series but also that she could not rule it out entirely. "Um, I think that Harry's story comes to quite a clear end in Book Seven but I've always said that I wouldn't say 'never'. I can't say I'll never write another book about that world just because I think what do I know, in ten years' time I might want to return to it but I think it's unlikely". In a recent interview, she said she "wants to fall in love with another idea...", also stating that "Harry Potter was the experience of a lifetime".
In an interview published on 26 July 2007, Rowling said that she wants to dedicate "lots" of her time to her family, but is currently "sort of writing two things", one for children and the other for adults. She did not give any details about the two projects but did state that she was excited because the two book situation reminds her of writing the Philosopher's Stone, explaining how she was then writing two books until Harry took over.
In August 2007, it was widely reported that Rowling had been spotted working on a crime novel in Edinburgh, Scotland by the wife of crime novelist Ian Rankin. Shortly after, however, Rankin dismissed this as a joke.
Current personal life
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthesiologist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. This was a second marriage for both Rowling and Murray, as Murray had previously been married to Dr. Fiona Duncan in 1996. They separated in 1999 and divorced in the summer of 2001. Rowling and Murray's son David Gordon Rowling Murray was born on 24 March 2003. Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince she took a break from working on the novel to care for him in his early infancy. Rowling's youngest child, daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was born 23 January 2005.
Philanthropy
Rowling contributes substantially to charities that combat poverty and social inequality. She also gives to organizations that aid children, one parent families, and multiple sclerosis research. Rowling said, "I think you have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently."[69]
Other donations
On 1 August and 2 August 2006 she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières. In May 2007, Rowling gave US$495,000 to a reward fund of over $4.5 million for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who was kidnapped in Portugal. In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to raise funds for the Children's High Level Group, an organization devoted to enforcing the human rights of mentally ill children in Eastern Europe, where mental institutions have been known to use caged beds.
Honours
• In June 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Rowling an officer of the Order of the British Empire.
• In July 2000, the University of Exeter (of which she is a graduate) awarded her an honorary DLitt degree.
• In April 2006, the asteroid (43844) Rowling was named in her honour. The name was submitted to the International Astronomical Union by astronomer Dr. Mark Hammergren, who had been a fan of the Harry Potter series since 2004.
• In May 2006, the newly-discovered Pachycephalosaurid dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia, currently at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, was named in honour of her world.
• In June 2006, the British public named Rowling “the greatest living British writer” in a poll by The Book Magazine. Rowling topped the poll, receiving nearly three times as many votes as the second-place author, fantasy writer Terry Pratchett.
• In July 2006 Rowling received a Doctor of Laws (LLD) honorary degree from University of Aberdeen for her "significant contribution to many charitable causes" and "her many contributions to society".
• At the end of a Harry Potter Blue Peter Special (broadcast 20 July 2007), J.K. Rowling's third appearance on the show, she was presented, by Gethin Jones, a Gold Blue Peter Badge. This, the highest award given by the show, reduced her to tears. She recounted being told on her previous appearance, when she got a silver badge, that she wouldn't get the gold unless she saved lives.
Bibliography
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997; titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States)
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007)
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (supplementary book) (2001)
• Quidditch Through the Ages (supplementary book) (2001)
Articles
• "The first It Girl: J.K. Rowling reviews Decca: the Letters of Jessica Mitford ed by Peter Y Sussman", The Daily Telegraph 26 July 2006
• Introduction to "Ending Child Poverty" in Moving Britain Forward. Selected Speeches 1997-2006 by Gordon Brown, Bloomsbury (2006)
• Foreword to the anthology Magic, edited by Gil McNeil and Sarah Brown, Bloomsbury (2002)
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