Popular Profiles - 11. J K Rowling
J K Rowling the author of Harry potter series is a very popular British Novelist. Though she is speculated to be a billionaire now, she had a humble beginning.
Her life is a perfect example of rags to riches.
Personal life
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer and Anne Rowling, a science technician, on 31 July 1965 in Gloucestershire, England.
Writing influence
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories which she frequently read to her sister.
When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling read all of her books.
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. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.
Family problems
After completing college, Rowling moved to Porto in Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. There she met Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar, and found they shared an 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.
The couple separated on 17 November 1993.Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, although the full extent is unknown.
In December 1993, Rowling and her then-infant daughter moved to be near Rowling's sister in Edinburgh, Scotland, with three chapters of what would become Harry Potter in her suitcase.
Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating and allowing her to focus on writing. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. Rowling signed up for welfare benefits, describing her economic status as being "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.
Rowling was left in despair after her estranged husband arrived in Scotland, seeking both her and her daughter. She obtained an order of restraint and Arantes returned to Portugal, with Rowling filing for divorce in August 1994.
She began a teacher training course in August 1995 at the Moray House School of Education, at Edinburgh University, after completing her first novel while living on state benefits.
She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café (owned by her brother-in-law, Roger Moore), and the Elephant House; wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep.
Harry potter and rise to fame
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 [1.5 lakhs in Indian Rupees] advance) by Editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London. The decision to publish Rowling's book 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 [8 lakhs in Indian Rupees] 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 [ 16 and 25 lakhs Indian Rupees].
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 US$105,000 [69 Lakhs in Indian Rupees]. Rowling said that 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 says she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time.
The sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was the third novel in the series.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of the fourth book Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007.
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated US$15 billion [ approximately 1 lakh crores in Indian Rupees] and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totaling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.