J.K.

Rowling

J.K. (Joanne, Kathleen) Rowling was born on July the 31 st

1965 in Bristol, England. The first time Rowling’s parents met
was on a train from King’s Cross station. She had a sister
called Dianne; they grew up in Gloucestershire and
Chepstow, south Wales. Joanne grew up surrounded by
books “I lived for books,” she has said. Her first book was
called Rabbit. She studied French and Classics at Exeter
University and went to Paris for a year where she finished her
studies, next she went to London where she got her first job
as a secretary. In 1990 while Joanne was in England, she
thought up Harry Potter on a delayed train and over the next
5 years Joanne planned the seven Harry Potter books. She
moved to northern Portugal and taught English as a foreign
language. Joanne married Jorge Arantes in 1992 and had a
daughter named Jessica in 1993. When the marriage ended
later that year, she returned to the UK and went to live in
Edinburgh with Jessica and a suitcase containing the first 3
chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. In
Edinburg Joanne trained as a teacher and began teaching in
the city’s schools, but she continued to write every spare
moment she had.

Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross station was created by JK Rowling in the

Harry Potter books.

At one stage Joanne had no Job and very little money. This
was a very hard time in her life. She wrote her first Harry
Potter novel in café in Scotland called The Elephant House.
She typed it on an old typewriter in 1995. Twelve publishers
rejected her book, Bloomsbury published it after the owner’s
daughter loved the first chapter.

The Elephant House Café in Edinburgh

Her first Harry Potter book – Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone, was published in 1997. One of the
original copies now costs £16,000 - £25,000. The second in
the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was
published in July 1998. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban was published in 1999. The fourth book Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire was published in 2000, this broke sales
records in the UK and the US. It sold 372, 775 copies were
sold on it’s first day in the UK and 3 million copies in the US in
two days. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came
out in 2003 and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was
released in 2005. The last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows, was published in 2006, it sold 11 million copies on
it’s first day in the UK and the US. Her Harry Potter books
won lots of awards and prizes and were made into films.

Harry Potter with his broomstick and wand, with Hogwarts in the background
from the Harry Potter movies.
In 2011 she started writing novels for adults, some using the
pseudonym Robert Galbraith. She has another children’s
book The Ickabog coming out in November 2020.

In 2004 she became the first author to become a billionaire.

She was named the most highly paid author in the world in
2017. She supports lots of different charities especially those
that help children, poor families and Multiple Sclerosis
research.
Yup

I hope you enjoyed my project, I learnt that JK Rowling kept

trying even when things were hard and that because of that I
got to enjoy her amazing Harry Potter books.