J.K. Rowling

Born

in Yate, South Gloucestershire, England, The United Kingdom

July 31, 1965

Website

http://www.jkrowling.com

Twitter

jk_rowling

Genre

Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy

Influences

Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis

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See also: Robert Galbraith
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 her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she See also: Robert Galbraith
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 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.

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née 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.

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.

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 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 wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s 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. ...more

20 posts
J.K. Rowling's Blog

J.K. Rowling isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but she does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from her feed.

Two new books for British Library’s exhibition

Harry Potter UK publisher, Bloomsbury and the British Library are creating two magic-filled books to accompany this autumn’s exhibition Harry Potter: A History of Magic at the library in London, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Both books will publish in the UK on 20th October 2017- the day that the exhibition opens its doors...

Combine Editions
J.K. Rowling's Books

Average rating: 4.42 · 18,175,342 ratings · 452,717 reviews · 164 distinct works · Similar authors

	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) 4.44 avg rating — 4,757,072 ratings — published 1997 — 487 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator) 4.53 avg rating — 1,955,540 ratings — published 1999 — 373 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator) 4.61 avg rating — 1,834,932 ratings — published 2007 — 260 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator) 4.52 avg rating — 1,855,644 ratings — published 2000 — 327 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator), Amik Kasoruho (Translator) 4.37 avg rating — 1,891,758 ratings — published 1998 — 395 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator) 4.46 avg rating — 1,829,517 ratings — published 2003 — 98 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator) 4.54 avg rating — 1,773,880 ratings — published 2005 — 270 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Tales of Beedle the Bard 4.06 avg rating — 317,060 ratings — published 2007 — 128 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Potter Boxset (Harry Potter, #1-7) 4.74 avg rating — 202,921 ratings — published 1998 — 76 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Casual Vacancy 3.28 avg rating — 253,408 ratings — published 2012 — 138 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by J.K. Rowling…

Series by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter (8 books)
by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
4.47 avg rating — 16,575,160 ratings

Pottermore Presents (3 books)
by J.K. Rowling
4.21 avg rating — 55,836 ratings

Harry Potter Persian/Farsi Split-Volume Edition (9 books)
by J.K. Rowling, ویدا اسلامیه (ترجمه), جی.کی. رولینگ
3.93 avg rating — 2,858 ratings

Harry Potter Korean Split-Volume Paperback (23 books)
by J.K. Rowling, 조앤・K・롤링
4.54 avg rating — 2,109 ratings

Harry Potter Japanese Split-Volume Children's Edition (20 books)
by J.K. Rowling, J・K・ローリング, 松岡佑子 (訳)
4.76 avg rating — 211 ratings

More series by J.K. Rowling…

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Quotes by J.K. Rowling

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

85804 likes

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

tags: abilities, choices

45345 likes

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

tags: dreams, life

43637 likes

See all J.K. Rowling's quotes »

Polls

What do you think is the best book you ever read?

1984 by George Orwell (also wrote animal farm)

George Orwell

1 vote 100.0%

Harry Potter series

J.K. Rowling

0 votes 0.0%

The hunger games (includes catching fire and mockingjay) Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) by Suzanne Collins

0 votes 0.0%

Twilight series

Stephenie Meyer

0 votes 0.0%

1 total vote

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J.K. Rowling

20 posts
J.K. Rowling's Blog

Combine Editions
J.K. Rowling's Books

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Quotes by J.K. Rowling

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

J.K. Rowling’s Followers (166,552)

Add NewVideos

J.K. Rowling

20 postsJ.K. Rowling's Blog

Combine EditionsJ.K. Rowling's Books

Series by J.K. Rowling

Upcoming Events

Quotes by J.K. Rowling

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

20 posts
J.K. Rowling's Blog

Combine Editions
J.K. Rowling's Books