Joanne "
Jo"
Rowling OBE
[1]
(born 31 July 1965),
[2] who
writes under the pen name
J. K. Rowling,
[3]
is a British author, best known as the creator of the
Harry Potter
fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived whilst on a train trip from
Manchester to London in 1990. The
Potter books have gained worldwide
attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.
[4]
Aside from writing the Potter novels, Rowling is perhaps equally
famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from
living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. The 2008
Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798
million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Britain.[5]
Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of
2007,[6] and Time
magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting
the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom.[7]
She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic
Relief, One Parent Families and the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great
Britain.
Name
Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", pronounced
rolling (IPA:
/ˈroʊlɪŋ/),[8]
her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply
"Joanne Rowling". Before publishing her first book, her 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. The name Kathleen has never been part of her real
name.[3]
Following her marriage, she sometimes uses the name Joanne Murray
when conducting private matters.[9][10]
She calls herself "Jo" and says, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was
young, unless they were angry."[11]
Background
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on
31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast
of Bristol.[12]
Her sister Dianne (Di) was born at their home on 28 June 1967[13]
when Rowling was 23 months old.[12]
The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four.
She attended St Michael's Primary School,[14]
a school founded almost 200 years ago by famed abolitionist William
Wilberforce[15] and education
reformer Hannah More. Her elderly headmaster at St. Michael's, Alfred Dunn,
was claimed as the inspiration for the Harry Potter character Albus
Dumbledore.[16][17]
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."[8]
At the age of nine, Rowling moved to the Gloucestershire village of
Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales.[12]
When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught
classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable
kind", gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons
and Rebels.[18]
Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her
books.[19]
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College. Rowling has
said of her adolescence, "Hermione is loosely based on me. She's a
caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of."[20]
Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford
Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley isn't a
living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."[21]
Of her musical tastes of the time, she said "My favourite group in the world
is The Smiths. And when I was going through a punky phase, it was The
Clash."[22] Rowling read for a
BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter, which she says was a
"bit of a shock" as she "was expecting to be amongst lots of similar people–
thinking radical thoughts." Once she made friends with "some like-minded
people" she says she began to enjoy herself.[23]
With a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a
researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.[24]
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester
to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of
wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind.[25]
"I really don't know where the idea came from", she told the Boston Globe,
"It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came
flooding into my head."[25][12]
When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write
immediately.[12][26]
However, in December of that year, Rowling’s mother died, after her
ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis.[12]
Rowling commented, "I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my
mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter."[10]
Rowling said this death heavily affected her writing[27][10]
and that she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first
book, because she knew about how it felt.[28]
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign
language.[19]
While there, on 16 October 1992, she married Portuguese television
journalist Jorge Arantes. Their one child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes
(named after Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal.[29]
They separated in November 1993.[29][30]
In December 1994, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in
Edinburgh, Scotland.[12]
During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, and
contemplated suicide.[31]
It was the feeling of her illness which brought her the idea of Dementors,
soulless creatures featured in Harry Potter.[32]
After Jessica's birth, Rowling left her teaching job, choosing instead to
survive on welfare while working on her first novel.</a>
She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café,[33]
whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep.[12][34]
In a 2001 BBC interview, Rowling denied the rumour that she wrote in local
cafés to escape from her unheated flat, remarking, "I am not stupid enough
to rent an unheated flat in Edinburgh in midwinter. It had heating."
Instead, as she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one
of the reasons she wrote in cafés was because taking her baby out for a walk
was the best way to make her fall asleep.[34]
Harry Potter
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter.[35]
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 submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which
rejected the manuscript.[29]
A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by
editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in
London, England.[36][29]
The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton,
the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the
first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.[37]
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.[38]
Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts
Council to enable her to continue writing.[39]
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.[40]
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an
initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to
libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000.[41]
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. Its
sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in
July, 1998.[42] 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.[3]
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.[43]
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.[44]
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released
simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records
in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first
day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold
during its first year.[45]
In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours,
smashing all literary sales records.[45]
Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the
novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault
with the plot ... I've had some of my blackest moments with this book ...
One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which
one or know the pain it caused me."[46]
Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.[47]
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire
and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of
the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had
developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied.[48]
Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix
could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out
of time and energy toward the end."[49]
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was
released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine
million copies in its first 24 hours of release.[50]
While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years,
but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the
plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing."[51]
She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which
features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime
Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's
Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban.[52]
In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the
British Book Awards.[53]
The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was revealed
21 December 2006 to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.[54]
In February 2007 it was reported that Rowling wrote on a bust in her hotel
room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh that she had finished the seventh
book in that room on 11 January 2007.[55]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007
(0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of
all time.[56] It sold
11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and
United States.[56] She
has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like
1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series.[57]
During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed
herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30
December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and
showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and
completed the first Harry Potter book.[58]
Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was
"really where I turned my life around completely."[58]
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion
($15 billion),[59] and the
last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the
fastest-selling books in history.[60][56]
The series, totalling 4,195 pages,[61]
has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.[62]
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking
an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought
to be abandoning books for computers and television,[63]
although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been
questioned.[64]
Harry Potter films
In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two
novels for a seven-figure sum.[65]
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.[66]
Both were directed by Chris Columbus. 4 June 2004 saw the release of the
film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, directed by
Alfonso Cuarón. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
was directed by another new director, Mike Newell, and released on 18
November 2005. The film of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
was released on 11 July 2007.[66]
David Yates directed, and Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay, having
taken over the position from Steven Kloves. Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince is in production,[67]
scheduled for release on 17 July 2009.[68]
David Yates will direct again, and Kloves will return to screen write it.[69]
In March 2008, Warner Bros. announced that the final instalment of the
series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, would be filmed in two
segments, with part one released in November 2010 and part two released in
May 2011. Yates would again return to direct both films.[70]
Warner Bros took considerable notice of Rowling's desires and thoughts
when drafting her contract. One of her principal stipulations was the films
be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has been adhered to
strictly.[71] 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.[72]
The first four films were scripted by Steve Kloves; Rowling assisted him
in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future
books in the series. She has said that she told him more about the later
books than anybody else (prior to their release), but not everything.[73]
She has also said that she told Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Robbie
Coltrane (Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters before they were
revealed in the books.[74]
Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) asked her if Harry died at any point in the
series; Rowling answered him by saying, "You have a death scene", thereby
not explicitly answering the question.[75]
Steven Spielberg was approached to direct the first film, but dropped out.
The press has repeatedly claimed that Rowling played a role in his
departure, but Rowling stated that she has no say in who directs the films
and would not have vetoed Spielberg if she had.[76]
Rowling's first choice for the director had been Monty Python member Terry
Gilliam, as she is a fan of his work. Warner Bros. wanted a more family
friendly film, and eventually they settled on Chris Columbus.[77]
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.[78] In an
interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling claimed that she would much
prefer to write any subsequent books under a pseudonym; however she conceded
to Jeremy Paxman in 2003 that if she did, the press would probably "find out
in seconds."[79] In 2006,
Rowling revealed that she had finished writing 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.[80]
She is not planning to write an eighth Harry Potter book, and has
stated, "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."[81]
However, Rowling has said she will be writing an encyclopaedia of Harry
Potter's wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and
notes.[82] Any profits from
such a book would be given to charity.[83]
During a news conference at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre in 2007, Rowling, when
asked how the encyclopaedia was coming along, said, "It's not coming along,
and I haven't started writing it. I never said it was the next thing I'd
do."[84] As of the end of
2007, Rowling has said that the encyclopaedia could take up to ten years to
complete, stating "There is no point in doing it unless it is amazing. The
last thing I want to do is to rush something out".[58]
In 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.[85]
She did not give any details about the two projects but did state that she
was excited because the two book situation reminded her of writing the
Philosopher's Stone, explaining how she was then writing two books until
Harry took over.[86] She
stated in October 2007 that her future work was unlikely to be in the
fantasy genre, explaining, "I think probably I've done my fantasy ... it
would be incredibly difficult to go out and create another world that didn't
in some way overlap with Harry's or maybe borrow a little too much from
Harry."[87] In November 2007,
Rowling said that she was working on another book, a "half-finished book for
children that I think will probably be the next thing I publish."[88]
In March 2008, Rowling confirmed that her "political fairy tale" for
children was nearing completion.[89]
In March 2008, Rowling revealed in interview that she had returned to
writing in Edinburgh cafés, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I
will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy," she told
The Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable café; I blend
into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring
all around me."[90]
Personal life
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a
U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books,[91]
the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the
world.[92] When first listed
as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations
and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire.[93]
In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th
richest person in Britain.[5]
In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house,
Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth
and Kinross, Scotland.[94]
Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9
million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London,[95]
on a street with 24-hour security.[96]
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June
1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home.[97]
This was a second marriage for both Rowling and Murray, as Murray had
previously been married to Dr. Fiona Duncan in 1996. Murray and Duncan
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.[98]
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.[99] 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.[100]
Rowling is a member of the Church of Scotland. She once said, "I believe
in God, not magic."[101]
Early on she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs, they would
be able to "guess what is coming in the books."[102]
Rowling has stated that she struggles with her own beliefs. In an interview
with the Today Show in July 2007, she said, "... until we reached
Book Seven, views of what happens after death and so on ... would give away
a lot of what was coming. So ... yes, my belief and my struggling with
religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book."[103]
Rowling commented on her political views when she discussed the 2008
United States presidential election with the Spanish-language newspaper
El País. She said she is obsessed with the United States elections
because they will have a profound effect on the rest of the world. In
February 2008, she said that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be
"extraordinary" in the White House. In the same interview, she also said her
hero was Robert F. Kennedy.[104][105]
Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the
University of Edinburgh, Napier University, and the University of Aberdeen.[106][107]
On 5 June 2008, Rowling spoke at the Harvard University commencement
ceremony where she received another honorary degree.[108]
In 2009 Rowling was awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas
Sarkozy. She revealed publicly, during the Elysée Palace ceremony, that her
maternal grandfather was French and had also received the Légion d'honneur
for his bravery at the First World War battle of Verdun.
[109]
Relationship with the press
Rowling has had a difficult relationship with the press. She admits to
being "thin-skinned" and dislikes the fickle nature of reporting. "They went
in one day from saying, 'She’s got writer’s block' to saying, 'She's been
self-indulgent'", she told The Times in 2003, "And I thought, well,
what a difference 24 hours makes." However, Rowling disputes her reputation
as a recluse who hates to be interviewed.[110]
In 2001, the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Rowling over
a series of unauthorised photographs of her with her daughter on the beach
in Mauritius published in OK! Magazine.[111]
In 2007, Rowling's young son, David, assisted by Rowling and her husband,
lost a court fight to ban publication of a photograph of him. The photo,
taken by a photographer using a long-range lens, was subsequently published
in a Sunday Express article featuring Rowling's family life and
motherhood.[9] However,
the judgment was overturned in David's favour in May 2008.[112][113]
Rowling has said she particularly dislikes the British tabloid The
Daily Mail, which made references to a stalker Rowling insists does not
exist, and conducted interviews with her estranged ex-husband. As one
journalist noted, "Harry's Uncle Vernon is a grotesque philistine of violent
tendencies and remarkably little brain. It is not difficult to guess which
newspaper Rowling gives him to read [in Goblet of Fire]."[114]
Some have speculated that Rowling's fraught relationship with the press
was the inspiration behind the character Rita Skeeter. However, Rowling
noted in 2000 that the character actually predates her rise to fame: "People
have asked me whether Rita Skeeter was invented [to reflect Harry Potter's
popularity], but in fact she was always planned."[115]
"I tried to put Rita in Philosopher's Stone - you know when Harry
walks into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time and everyone says, "Mr.
Potter you're back!", I wanted to put a journalist in there. She wasn't
called Rita then but she was a woman. And then I thought, as I looked at the
plot overall, I thought, that's not really where she fits best, she fits
best in Four when Harry's supposed to come to terms with his fame."[116]
Philanthropy
In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its
annual budget of £5.1 million to combat poverty and social inequality. The
fund also gives to organisations that aid children, one parent families, and
multiple sclerosis research.[117]
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."[85]
Anti-poverty
Rowling, once a single parent herself, is now president of the charity
One Parent Families, having already become their first Ambassador in 2000.[118][119]
Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families.[120]
In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three
bestselling British authors – cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith,
Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling – to submit booklets
related to their most famous works for publication.[121]
Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and
Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found
in the Hogwarts library. Since going on sale in March 2001, the books have
raised £15.7 million ($30 million) for the fund. The £10.8 million ($20
million) they have raised outside the UK have been channelled into a newly
created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis.[122]
In 2005, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level
Group.[123] In January 2006,
Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in children's
mental institutions.[124] To
further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and
illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy
tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book
was purchased for £1.95 million by on-line bookseller Amazon.com on 13
December 2007, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction.[125][126][127]
Rowling commented, "This will mean so much to children in desperate need of
help. It means Christmas has come early to me."[126][128]
Rowling will give away the remaining six copies to those who have a close
connection with the Harry Potter books.[126]
In 2008, Rowling agreed to publish the book with the proceeds going to the
Children's High Level Group.[125]
Political donation
In September 2008, on the eve of the Labour Party Conference, Rowling
announced that she had donated £1 million to the Labour Party, saying in a
statement:
"I believe that poor and vulnerable families will fare much better
under the Labour Party than they would under a Cameron-led Conservative
Party. Gordon Brown has consistently prioritised and introduced measures
that will save as many children as possible from a life lacking in
opportunity or choice. The Labour government has reversed the long-term
trend in child poverty, and is one of the leading EU countries in
combating child poverty. David Cameron's promise of tax perks for the
married, on the other hand, is reminiscent of the Conservative
government I experienced as a lone parent. It sends the message that the
Conservatives still believe a childless, dual-income, but married couple
is more deserving of a financial pat on the head than those struggling,
as I once was, to keep their families afloat in difficult times."[129]
Other philanthropic work
In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers
(Sebastian Faulks, Doris Lessing, Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren
Child, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler,
Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh) to compose a short piece of their own
choosing on a single A5 card, which would then be sold at auction in aid of
the charities Dyslexia Action and English PEN. Rowling's contribution was an
800-word Harry Potter prequel that concerns Harry's father, James Potter and
godfather, Sirius Black, and takes place three years before Harry was born.[130][131]
Rowling claims that she does not intend to return to Harry Potter for
at least ten years.[132][133]
The cards will be collected together and sold for charity in book form in
August 2008.[131]
Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of
multiple sclerosis, from which her mother died in 1990. In 2006, Rowling
contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for
Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University.[134]
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.[135] In May
2007, Rowling gave $495,000 to a reward fund of over $4.5 million for the
safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in
Portugal.[136][137]
Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an
introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the proceeds of
which are donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory.[138]
Legal disputes
Rowling, her publishers and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the
Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their
copyright, and also have fielded accusations of copyright theft themselves.[139]
The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the
appearance of a number of locally produced, unauthorised sequels and other
derivative works, sparking efforts to ban or contain them.[140]
While these legal proceedings have countered a number of cases of outright
piracy,[141] other
attempts have targeted not-for-profit endeavours and have been criticised as
a result as too draconian.[142]
Another area of legal dispute involves a series of injunctions obtained
by Rowling and her publishers to prohibit anyone from reading her books
before their official release date. These injunctions have very sweeping
powers and have occasionally drawn fire from civil liberties and free speech
campaigners and sparked debates over the "right to read".[143][144]
The powers afforded by these injunctions have even been used in subsequent
cases unrelated to publishing.[145]
Publications
Harry Potter series
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007)
Other books
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (supplement to the
Potter series) (2001)
- Quidditch Through the Ages (supplement to the Potter series)
(2001)
- The Tales of Beedle the Bard (supplement to the Potter
series, also publicly displayed by Amazon.com) (2007)
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)
- The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,
J.K. Rowling, Harvard Magazine, 5 June 2008