Liceul Technologic Domokos Kzmr

Sovata
Filiera: Teoretic
Profil: Real
Specializare: Matematic-Informatic Intensiv Englez

Atestat la limba
Englez

Profesor ndrumtor:
Alman Cristina

Autor:
Kacs Melnia
XII.B.

2013

Table of contents:

Introduction4
Chapter I. J. K. Rowling5
1.1. Name.5

Chapter II. Biography6

2.1. Birth and family6
2.2. Childhood and education6
2.3. Rowling's childhood home, Church Cottage, Tutshill. 6
2.4. Inspiration and mother's death8
2.5. Rowling described the conception of Harry Potter on her website: 8

Chapter III. Marriage, divorce and single parenthood9

Chapter IV. Harry Potter10
4.1. Harry Potter films13
4.2. Success14

Chapter V. Remarriage and family and personal life15

5.1. Change of agency and The Casual Vacancy15

Chapter VI. Future of Harry Potter16

Chapter VII. Philanthropy17
7.1. Anti-poverty and children's welfare17
7.2. Multiple sclerosis18

Chapter VIII. Awards and honors19

8.1. Harry Potter series20

Conclusion..21

Introduction

I chose this topic because I liked very much the Harry Potter film series. By doing
my thesis I get lot new information which I did not about Joanne Rowling nicked J. K.
Rowling.
From my thesis the reader can find out more about her personal life, her
childhood and her primary inspiration sources.
I continued with presenting the Harry Potter series, the life of a young witch boy
with the same name. This is considered the biggest success of J.K. Rowling, and this was
to tool to the way up. By creating a new world, the world of Harrys, and by writing
inside some part of her life, Joanne realized one of the greatest book series of our time.

Chapter I. J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling (born 31 July 1965), pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British
novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books
have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million
copies. They have become the best-selling book series in history, and been the basis for a
series of films which has become the highest-grossing film series in history. Rowling had
overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a
producer on the final installment.
Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual
secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter
series on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. The seven-year period that
followed entailed the death of her mother, divorce from her first husband and poverty
until Rowling finished the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone (1997). Rowling subsequently published 6 sequelsthe last, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows (2007)as well as 3 supplements to the series. In 2012, Rowling parted
with her agency and resumed writing in the form of a tragicomedy novel aimed at adult
readership, entitled The Casual Vacancy. Rowling has said she is currently working on
two booksone aimed for adults, the other for children younger than the Harry Potter
audience, and she expects the latter to be published first.

1.1. Name
Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", pronounced like rolling,
her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply "Joanne Rowling".
Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written
by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name.
As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her
paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself "Jo" and has said,
"No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following
5

her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting
personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of
Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared
that people pronounced her name incorrectly.

Chapter II. Biography

2.1. Birth and family
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and
Anne Rowling (ne Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles
(16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her
parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in
1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald
Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather,
Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the
village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.

2.2. Childhood and education

Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months
old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She
attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William
Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's,
Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus
Dumbledore.

2.3. Rowling's childhood home, Church Cottage, Tutshill.

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then
read to her sister. She recalls that "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. Certainly
the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called
6

Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called
Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire
village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. 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. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her
books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I
wasnt particularly happy. I think its a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult
homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no
longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School
and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department.
Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter
character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm
not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first
arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright,
and quite good at English". 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
[Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."
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." Rowling
studied A Levels in English, French and German, achieving two A's and a B and was
Head Girl.
In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not
accepted and 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. Of her time at Exeter, Martin Sorrell, then a professor of
French at the university, recalled "a quietly competent student, with a denim jacket and
dark hair, who, in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary."
Although her own memory is of "doing no work whatsoever" and instead she "wore
7

heavy eyeliner, listened to the Smiths, and read Dickens and Tolkien". After a year of
study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986 and moved to London to work as
a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. In 1998, Rowling wrote a
short-essay about her time studying Classics entitled "What was the Name of that Nymph
Again? or Greek and Roman Studies Recalled", it was published by the University of
Exeter's journal Pegasus.

2.4. Inspiration and mother's death

After working at Amnesty International in London, Rowling and her then
boyfriend decided to move to Manchester. 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. She told The Boston Globe that "I
really don't know where the idea came from. It started with Harry, then all these
characters and situations came flooding into my head."

2.5. Rowling described the conception of Harry Potter on her website:

I was travelling back to London on my own on a crowded train, and the idea for
Harry Potter simply fell into my head. I had been writing almost continuously since the
age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense
frustration, I didn't have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could
borrow one I did not have a functioning pen with me, but I do think that this was
probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all
the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who
didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. Perhaps, if I had slowed
down the ideas to capture them on paper, I might have stifled some of them (although
sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had
forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen). I began to write 'Philosopher's
Stone' that very evening, although those first few pages bear no resemblance to anything
in the finished book.
When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.
In December of that year, Rowling's mother died, after ten years suffering from multiple
8

sclerosis. Rowling commented, "I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother
died. I had never told her about Harry Potter." Rowling said this death heavily affected
her writing and that she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book,
because she knew about how it felt.

Chapter III. Marriage, divorce and single parenthood

An advert in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto in Portugal to teach
English as a foreign language. She taught at night, and began writing in the day whilst
listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. While there she met Portuguese television
journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar, after sharing a mutual interest in Jane Austen. They
married on 16 October 1992 and their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after
Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. Rowling had previously suffered
a miscarriage. They separated on 17 November 1993, 13 months and one day after their
marriage. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her
marriage, although the full extent is unknown. In an interview with The Daily Express,
Arantes said on their final night together he had dragged her out of their home at five in
the morning and slapped her hard. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved
to be near Rowling's sister in Edinburgh, Scotland, with three chapters of Harry Potter in
her suitcase.
Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as "the biggest
failure I knew." Her marriage had failed, she was jobless with a dependent child, but she
described her failure as liberating:
Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I
was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the
only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never
have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set
free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a
daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom
became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Chapter IV. Harry Potter

"The Elephant House" one of the cafs in Edinburgh in which Rowling wrote
the first Harry Potter novel.
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, 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. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a 1500 advance) by
editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London. 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. 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, in 1997, Rowling received an
8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run
of 1,000 copies, 500 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 Nestl
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 early 1998, an
auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by
Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. In Rowling's own words, she "nearly died" when she heard
the news. 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. Rowling moved
from her flat with the money from the Scholastic sale, into 19 Hazelbank Terrace in
Edinburgh. Her neighbors were initially unaware that she was the author of the Harry

10

Potter series, although according to biographer Connie Ann Kirk, "most treated her with
respect and gave her the distance they would want themselves".
Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998
and again Rowling won the Smarties Prize. 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 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. In the US, the book sold three
million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. 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." Rowling was named author of the
year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
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.
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."
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. 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." She noted on her website that the opening
chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the
11

British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone,
then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received
the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.
The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was revealed on 21 December
2006 to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 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. Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007 (0:01 BST) and broke its predecessor's
record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of
release in the United Kingdom and United States. She wrote the last chapter of the book
"in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. 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. Re-visiting the flat for the
first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around
completely."
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling gave credit to her mother for the
success of the series saying that "the books are what they are because she died...because I
loved her and she died."
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated $15 billion, and the last
four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in
history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65
languages.
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, although it is reported that despite the huge uptake of the
books, adolescent reading has continued to decline.

12

4.1. Harry Potter films

In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels for
a seven-figure sum. A film adaptation 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 films 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 Cuarn. 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. David Yates
directed, and Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay, having taken over the position
from Steve Kloves. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released on 15 July 2009.
David Yates directed again, and Kloves returned to write the script. 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 being released in
November 2010 and part two being released in July 2011. Yates would again return to
direct both films.
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 generally adhered to, with the majority of the
actors selected from Britain. 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.
The first four, sixth and seventh 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. She also told Alan Rickman
(Severus Snape) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters
before they were revealed in the books. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) asked her if Harry
died at any point in the series; Rowling answered him by saying, "You have a death
13

scene", thereby not explicitly answering the question. Director Steven Spielberg was
approached to helm 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. Rowling's first choice
for the director had been Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, as she is a fan of his
work, but Warner Bros. wanted a more family-friendly film and chose Columbus.
Rowling had gained some creative control on the films, reviewing all the scripts
as well as acting as a producer on the final two-part instalment, Deathly Hallows.
On her website, Rowling revealed that she was considered to have a cameo in the
first film as Lily Potter in the Mirror of Erised scene. Rowling, however, turned down the
role, stating that she was not cut out to be an actor and, "would have messed it up
somehow". The role ultimately went to Geraldine Somerville.
Rowling, producers David Heyman and David Barron, along with directors David
Yates, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuarn collected the Michael Balcon Award for
Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in
honour of the Harry Potter film franchise.

4.2. Success
In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar
billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest
person in the world. Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money,
but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling
the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list,
claiming that her over $160 million in charitable donations and the high tax rate in the
UK meant she was no longer a billionaire. In February 2013 she was assessed as the 13th
most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
In 2001, Rowling purchased a 19th-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on
the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also
owns a 4.5 million ($7 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, on a street
with 24-hour security. Rowling owned a house in the Merchiston area of Edinburgh

14

between 1999 and 2012, selling the eight-bedroomed house for over 2.25 million. She
currently lives in another property in Barnton, on the outskirts of the city.

Chapter V. Remarriage and family and personal life

On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June
1971), an anaesthetist, 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 Fiona
Duncan in 1996. Murray and Duncan separated in 1999 and divorced in mid-2001. It was
two years after her remarriage, in December 2003, that Rowling became estranged from
her father Peter Rowling, with whom she already claimed to have a difficult relationship.
In a 2012 interview with The New Yorker, stating they were still estranged, Rowling said
it stemmed from her father's decision in 2003 to sell personalised copies of the Harry
Potter series at Sotheby's auction house, including a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire inscribed with a Father's Day message "lots of love from your first-born" that sold
for 50,000.
Rowling's 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 on 23 January 2005.

5.1. Change of agency and The Casual Vacancy

In July 2011, Rowling parted company with her agent, Christopher Little, moving
to a new agency founded by one of his staff, Neil Blair, commenting on the move
Rowling said, "Neil and Christopher reached a point where it wasnt working, the two of
them together, and I had to make a decision. It was very, very difficult."
On 23 February 2012, Rowling's new agency, the Blair Partnership, announced on
its website that Rowling was set to publish a new book targeted at adults. In a press
release, Rowling noted the differences between her new project and the Potter series,
saying "Although I've enjoyed writing it just as much, my next novel will be very
different from the Harry Potter series." On 12 April 2012, Little, Brown and Company
15

announced that the book was entitled The Casual Vacancy and would be released on 27
September 2012. Rowling gave several interviews and made appearances to promote The
Casual Vacancy, including at the London Southbank Centre, the Cheltenham Literature
Festival, The Charlie Rose Show and the Lennoxlove Book Festival.[ In its first three
weeks of release, The Casual Vacancy sold over 1 million copies worldwide.
On 3 December 2012, it was announced that The Casual Vacancy will become a
BBC television drama series expected to air in 2014 on BBC One. The series will be
produced by Rowling's agent, Neil Blair, through his independent production company
and with Rick Senat serving as executive producer. Rowling is collaborating closely on
the adaptation. The number and length of episodes will be decided once the adaptation
process has begun.

Chapter VI. Future of Harry Potter

As regards the possibility of an eighth Harry Potter book, she has said, "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 October 2007 she
stated 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." However, on 1 October 2010, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey,
Rowling stated a new book on the saga might happen.
In 2007, Rowling stated that she plans to write an encyclopedia of Harry Potter's
wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from
such a book would be given to charity. During a news conference at Hollywood's Kodak
Theatre in 2007, Rowling, when asked how the encyclopedia 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." At the end of 2007, Rowling 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".
In June 2011, Rowling announced that future Harry Potter projects, and all
electronic downloads, would be concentrated in a new website, called Pottermore. The
16

site includes 18,000 words of additional information on characters, places and objects in
the Harry Potter universe. On 13 April 2012, following the website's release, Rowling
confirmed that she had started work on the encyclopedia and would donate all royalties to
charity as she had previously planned. In May 2012, however, she said, "I have been
enjoying sharing information about Harrys world on Pottermore for free, and dont have
any firm plans to publish it in book form."

Chapter VII. 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.
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."

7.1. Anti-poverty and children's welfare

Rowling, once a single parent herself, is now president of the charity Gingerbread
(originally One Parent Families), having already become their first Ambassador in 2000.
Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to aid One
Parent Families.
In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three best-selling
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. 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.
In 2005, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level
Group (now Lumos). In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of
caged beds in mental institutions for children. To further support the CHLG, Rowling
17

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. Rowling
commented, "This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help. It means
Christmas has come early to me." Rowling gave away the remaining six copies to those
who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books. In 2008, Rowling agreed to
publish the book with the proceeds going to the Children's High Level Group. On 1 June
2010 (International Children's Day), Lumos launched an annual initiative Light a
Birthday Candle for Lumos. To support the campaign on 1 June 2011, JK Rowling gave
an interview to Redonline.co.uk
In July 2012, Rowling was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening
ceremony in London where she read a few lines from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan as part of a
tribute to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. An inflatable representation of Lord
Voldemort and other children's literary characters accompanied her reading.

7.2. Multiple sclerosis

Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of
multiple sclerosis, from which her mother suffered before her death in 1990. In 2006,
Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for
Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, later named the Anne Rowling
Regenerative Neurology Clinic. In 2010 she donated a further 10 million to the centre.
For reasons unknown, Scotland, Rowling's country of adoption, has the highest rate of
multiple sclerosis in the world. In 2003, Rowling took part in a campaign to establish a
national standard of care for MS sufferers. In April 2009, she announced that she was
withdrawing her support for Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, citing her inability to
resolve an ongoing feud between the organisation's northern and southern branches that
had sapped morale and led to several resignations.

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Chapter VIII. Awards and honors

Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the
University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter, the University of
Aberdeen and Harvard University, for whom she spoke at the 2008 commencement
ceremony. In 2009 Rowling was awarded the Lgion d'honneur by French President
Nicolas Sarkozy.
Other awards include:
1997: Nestl Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone
1998: Nestl Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets
1998: British Children's Book of the Year, winner Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone
1999: Nestl Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban
1999: National Book Awards Children's Book of the Year, winner Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets
1999: Whitbread Children's Book of the Year, winner Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban
2000: British Book Awards, Author of the Year
2000: Order of the British Empire, Officer (for services to Children's literature)
2000: Locus Award, winner Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2001: Hugo Award for Best Novel, winner Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2003: Premio Prncipe de Asturias, Concord
2003: Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers, winner Harry Potter and the
Order of the Phoenix
2006: British Book of the Year, winner for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
2007: Blue Peter Badge, Gold
2008: British Book Awards, Outstanding Achievement
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2010: Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, inaugural award winner

2011: British Academy Film Awards, Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema for the
Harry Potter film series, shared with David Heyman, cast and crew
2012: Freedom of the City of London
Chapter IX. Publications

8.1. 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 children's books
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (supplement to the Harry Potter series) (1
March 2001)
Quidditch Through the Ages (supplement to the Harry Potter series) (1 March 2001)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard (supplement to the Harry Potter series) (4 December 2008)

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Conclusion

To sum up things I would like to mention that I like her style, not just writing best
seller book series, and enjoy the fortune of money we earned from that but she tries to
help where se can. This kind of helping spirit motivates others, and even I feel motivated
to do once charity if I will have the occasion.
Furthermore I gain more information about her biography, and of course about
one of my favorite book the Harry Potter.

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