J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling CH OBE HonFRSE FRCPE FRSL
Rowling in 2010
Born	Joanne Rowling (1965-07-31) 31 July 1965 Yate, Gloucestershire, England
Pen name	J. K. Rowling Robert Galbraith
Occupation	Author philanthropist film producer television producer screenwriter
Alma mater	University of Exeter Moray House
Period	1997–present
Genre	Fantasy drama young adult fiction crime fiction
Notable works	Harry Potter series Cormoran Strike series
Spouse	Jorge Arantes ​ ​ (m. 1992; div. 1995)​ Neil Murray ​ (m. 2001)​
Children	3
Signature
Website
jkrowling.com

Joanne Rowling, CH, OBE, HonFRSE, FRCPE, FRSL (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, film producer, and screenwriter. She is the author of the Harry Potter series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history. The books are the basis of a popular film series. She also writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. There were six sequels, of which the last was released in 2007. Since then, Rowling has written several books for adult readers: The Casual Vacancy (2012) and—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the crime fiction Cormoran Strike series. In 2020, her "political fairytale" for children, The Ickabog, was released in instalments in an online version.

Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life in which she progressed from living on benefits to being named the world's first billionaire author by Forbes. Rowling disputed the assertion, saying she was not a billionaire. Forbes reported that she lost her billionaire status after giving away much of her earnings to charity. Her UK sales total in excess of £238 million, making her the best-selling living author in Britain. The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £820 million, ranking her as the 196th richest person in the UK. Rowling was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to literature and philanthropy. She established the Volant Charitable Trust to support at-risk women, children and young people and has supported multiple charities, including Comic Relief, Gingerbread, and multiple sclerosis (MS) and coronavirus disease 2019 causes as well as launching her own charity, Lumos.

Time named her a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October 2010, she was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors. Rowling has voiced views on UK politics, especially in opposition to Scottish independence and Brexit, and has been critical of her relationship with the press. Since late 2019, she has publicly expressed her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights. These have been criticised as transphobic by LGBT rights organisations and some feminists, but have received support from other feminists and individuals.

Name

Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling, or Jo. Her publishers asked that she use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating the possibility of the target audience of young boys not wanting to read a book written by a woman. As she had no middle name, she chose K (for Kathleen) as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother. Following her remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British press, she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling and her entry in Who's Who lists her name also as Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

Life and career

Early life and education

Rowling's parents met on a train from King's Cross Station.

Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, to Anne (née Volant), a science technician, and Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Rowling's sister Dianne was born two years after Joanne.

The family moved to the nearby village of Winterbourne on the northern fringe of Bristol when Rowling was four, and to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales, when she was almost nine. She attended St Michael's Primary School in Winterbourne; its headmaster, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave Rowling a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and she read all her books. Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis (MS) and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms. She later said that Hermione Granger was a "caricature" of herself when she was eleven.

Her secondary school was Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department. Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth, owned a turquoise Ford Anglia which she says inspired a flying version that appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Like many teenagers, she became interested in rock music, listening to the Clash, the Smiths, and Siouxsie Sioux, adopting the look of the latter with back-combed hair and black eyeliner, a look that she still sported when beginning university. Steve Eddy, her first secondary school English teacher, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English". Rowling took A-levels in English, French and German, achieving two As and a B and was head girl.

Rowling's childhood home, Church Cottage, Tutshill, Gloucestershire

Rowling earned a BA in French and classics at the University of Exeter. Martin Sorrell, a French professor at Exeter, remembers "a quietly competent student, with a denim jacket and dark hair, who, in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary". Rowling recalls doing little work, preferring to read Dickens and Tolkien. After a year of study in Paris, she graduated from Exeter in 1986.

Inspiration and single parenthood

Rowling worked as a researcher and bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International, then moved with her boyfriend to Manchester where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce. In 1990, she was on a four-hour delayed train trip from Manchester to London when the characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger "came fully formed" into her mind. When she reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write.

In December 1990, Rowling's mother Anne died after suffering from MS for ten years. Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it. Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing.

Rowling moved to Porto to teach English.

An advertisement in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language. As she taught in the evenings, she wrote during the day, initially while listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. After 18 months in Porto, she met the Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar and found that they shared an interest in Jane Austen. They married on 16 October 1992, and their daughter Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford) was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. She had previously suffered a miscarriage. The couple separated on 17 November 1993. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, which she later confirmed. Arantes stated in an article for The Sun in June 2020 that he had slapped her and did not regret it. In December 1993, with three chapters of Harry Potter in her suitcase, Rowling and her daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near her sister.

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, she was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. Her depression inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book. She 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 their 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 often wrote in cafés, including one owned by her brother-in-law.

Harry Potter

Main article: Harry Potter

The Elephant House, one of the cafés 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 which was typed 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 Agency 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 £1,500 advance) by Barry Cunningham, an editor 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 £8,000 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 Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February 1998, the novel won the 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 US$105,000. 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. Rowling moved from her flat with the money from the Scholastic sale, into 19 Hazelbank Terrace in Edinburgh.

Rowling at the US National Press Club, 1999

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, with 372,775 copies of the book sold in its first day in the UK. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all records. Rowling said that she had had a crisis while writing the novel and had to rewrite one chapter 13 times to fix a problem with the plot. Rowling was named Author of the Year in the 2000 British Book Awards.

Three years elapsed 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 later denied. She later said that writing the book was a chore, that it could have been shorter, and that she ran out of time and energy as she tried to finish it.

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. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.

Queue in a Californian bookshop, five minutes before the official publication time of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was announced on 21 December 2006 as 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. The book's last chapter was one of the earliest pieces she wrote in the entire series.

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. As of February 2018, it had sold more than 500 million copies.

Harry Potter films

Main article: Harry Potter (film series)

In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels for a seven-figure sum. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, an adaptation of the first Harry Potter book, was released on 16 November 2001. The series's final instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was adapted in two parts. Part one was released on 19 November 2010 and part two followed on 15 July 2011. Steve Kloves wrote the screenplays for all but the fifth film. Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future books in the series. Rowling gained some creative control over the films, reviewing all the scripts as well as acting as a producer on the final two-part instalment, Deathly Hallows.

Warner Bros. took notice of Rowling's desires when drafting her contract. She stipulated that the films should be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has been generally adhered to. She also requested that Coca-Cola, the winner in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate to charity.

Rowling, producers David Heyman and David Barron, along with directors David Yates, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuarón 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.

In September 2013, Warner Bros. announced an "expanded creative partnership" with Rowling, based on a planned series of films about her character Newt Scamander, author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first film was released in November 2016 and is set roughly 70 years before the events of the main series. In 2016, it was announced that the series would consist of five films. The second, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, was released in November 2018. The third, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is scheduled to be released on 15 April 2022.

Financial success

In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a US-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. Rowling denied that she was a billionaire. By 2012, Forbes concluded that Rowling was no longer a billionaire. The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £820 million, ranking her as the 196th-richest person in the UK.

Rowling acquired the courtesy title of Laird of Killiechassie in 2001 when she purchased the historic Killiechassie House, and its surrounding estate situated on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross. Rowling also owns a £4.5 million Georgian house in Kensington, west London, on a street with 24-hour security.

Rowling has consistently been ranked among the highest earning authors in the world. She was named the world's highest paid author in 2017 and 2019 by Forbes with net earnings of £72 million ($95 million) and $92 million respectively.

Remarriage and family

Rowling married Neil Murray, a doctor, in a private ceremony at Killiechassie House, her Scottish home, on 26 December 2001. Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24 March 2003.

Rowling is a friend of Sarah Brown, wife of former prime minister Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project. When Sarah Brown's son Fraser was born in 2003, Rowling was one of the first to visit her in hospital. 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.

In October 2012, a New Yorker magazine article stated that the Rowling family lived in a seventeenth-century Edinburgh house, concealed at the front by tall conifer hedges. Prior to October 2012, Rowling lived near the author Ian Rankin, who later said she was quiet and introspective, and that she seemed in her element with children. As of June 2014, the family resides in Scotland.

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. On 23 February 2012, his 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 said that her new book would be quite different from Harry Potter. In April 2012, Little, Brown and Company announced that the book was titled The Casual Vacancy and would be released on 27 September 2012. 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 BBC would be adapting The Casual Vacancy into a television drama miniseries. Rowling's agent, Neil Blair, acted as producer through his independent production company and with Rick Senat serving as executive producer. Rowling collaborated on the adaptation, serving as an executive producer for the series. The series aired in three parts from 15 February to 1 March 2015.

Cormoran Strike

Main article: Cormoran Strike

In April 2013, Little Brown published The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported début novel of author Robert Galbraith, whom the publisher described as "a former plainclothes Royal Military Police investigator who had left in 2003 to work in the civilian security industry". The novel, a detective story in which private investigator Cormoran Strike unravels the supposed suicide of a supermodel, sold 1,500 copies in hardback and received acclaim from other crime writers and critics—a Publishers Weekly review called the book a "stellar debut", while the Library Journal's mystery section pronounced the novel "the debut of the month".

India Knight, a novelist and columnist for The Sunday Times, tweeted on 9 July 2013 that she had been reading The Cuckoo's Calling and thought it was good for a début novel. In response, a tweeter called Jude Callegari said that the author was Rowling. Knight queried this but got no further reply. Knight notified Richard Brooks, arts editor of The Sunday Times, who began his own investigation. After discovering that Rowling and Galbraith had the same agent and editor, he sent the books for linguistic analysis which found similarities, and contacted Rowling's agent, who confirmed Galbraith was Rowling's pseudonym. Within days of Rowling being revealed as the author, sales of the book rose by 4,000%, and Little Brown printed another 140,000 copies to meet demand.

Rowling said that she had enjoyed working under a pseudonym. She explained that she took the name from Robert F. Kennedy, a personal hero, and Ella Galbraith, a name she had invented for herself in childhood.

Soon after the revelation, Brooks pondered whether Jude Callegari could have been Rowling, as part of wider speculation that the entire affair had been a publicity stunt. Some also observed that many of the writers who had initially praised the book, such as Alex Gray or Val McDermid, were within Rowling's circle of acquaintances; both vociferously denied any foreknowledge of Rowling's authorship. Judith "Jude" Callegari was the best friend of the wife of Chris Gossage, a partner within Russells Solicitors, Rowling's legal representatives. Rowling released a statement saying she was disappointed and angry; Russells apologised for the leak, confirming it was not part of a marketing stunt and that "the disclosure was made in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly". Russells made a donation to the Soldiers' Charity on Rowling's behalf and reimbursed her for her legal fees. On 26 November 2013, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) issued Gossage a written rebuke and a £1,000 fine for breaching privacy rules.

The second Cormoran Strike novel, named The Silkworm, was released in 2014. In 2015, Rowling stated on Galbraith's website that the third Cormoran Strike novel would include "an insane amount of planning, the most I have done for any book I have written so far. I have colour-coded spreadsheets so I can keep a track of where I am going." Titled Career of Evil, it was released on 20 October 2015 in the United States, and on 22 October 2015 in the United Kingdom.

In 2017, the BBC released a Cormoran Strike television series, starring Tom Burke as Cormoran Strike. The series was picked up by HBO for distribution in the United States and Canada.

In March 2017, Rowling revealed the fourth novel's title via Twitter in a game of "Hangman" with her followers. After many failed attempts, followers finally guessed the name, and Rowling confirmed that the next novel's title is Lethal White. The book was released 18 September 2018. The fifth novel in the series, titled Troubled Blood, was published in September 2020. Troubled Blood won the 2021 Crime and Thriller Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Subsequent Harry Potter publications

For the material written for Comic Relief and other charities, see § Philanthropy.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in the West End

Although Rowling stated in 2007 that she planned to write an encyclopaedia of Harry Potter's wizarding world consisting of unpublished material and notes, she later said, "... I haven't started writing it. I never said it was the next thing I'd do."

A website called Pottermore became the host in 2011 of Harry Potter projects and electronic downloads. The site includes information on characters, places and objects in the Harry Potter universe.

In October 2015, Rowling announced that a two-part play she had co-authored with playwrights Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was the "eighth Harry Potter story" and that it would focus on the life of Harry Potter's youngest son Albus after the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The first round of tickets sold out in several hours. At Cursed Child's premiere in London, Rowling confirmed that she would not write any more Harry Potter books.

The Ickabog

Between 26 May 2020 and 10 July 2020, Rowling published an online children's story, The Ickabog. Rowling shelved the story that she had planned to release in 2007, previously referred to as a "political fairytale", and published it instead in daily online installments for children as a response to the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Royalties from the book were donated to charities helping groups strongly impacted by COVID-19.

The Christmas Pig

Rowling's 2021 children's novel, The Christmas Pig, is unconnected to any of Rowling's previous works. Upon release, the book received generally positive critical reviews and emerged a bestseller.

Influences

See also: Harry Potter influences and analogues

Rowling describes Jane Austen as her "favourite author of all time", and acknowledges Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare as literary influences. According to the critic Beatrice Groves, Harry Potter is "rooted in the Western literary tradition", including the classics. Scholars agree that Harry Potter is heavily influenced by the juvenile fantasy of writers such as C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Elizabeth Goudge, Ursula K. Le Guin, Dianna Wynne Jones, and E. Nesbit. As a child, Rowling read The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, Manxmouse by Paul Gallico, and books by E. Nesbit and Noel Streatfeild.

According to A. S. Byatt, Harry Potter is a simplistic work that reflects a dumbed-down culture dominated by soap operas and reality television.

Rowling has named civil rights activist Jessica Mitford as her greatest influence. She said "Jessica Mitford has been my heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing how Mitford had run away at the age of 19 to fight with the Reds in the Spanish Civil War", and claims what inspired her about Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent, she liked nothing better than a good fight, preferably against a pompous and hypocritical target".

Critical analysis

Harry Potter

Main article: Harry Potter

Critics have identified themes including death, truth, love, and power in the Harry Potter series, and noted its blend of ordinary objects and people with supernatural elements and magic. Rowling herself has identified her prime literary inspiration as Jane Austen, while critics have noted allusions to the Western classics and the influence of juvenile fantasy writers including C. S. Lewis.

Themes

Harry Potter has been defined as a fairy tale, a Bildungsroman, and a work about the characters' education. The overarching theme is death. Rowling admits "death and bereavement" to be "one of the central themes in all seven books". Death is pervasive throughout: Harry is an orphan, whose parents were killed by Voldemort's deadly magic. The preoccupation with death is evident in the frequent deaths of characters in Harry's life and his confrontation with his own mortality in Deathly Hallows. In Harry's world, death is mutable, not binary, but a state that exists in degrees. The series is fundamentally existential – Harry must learn necessary lessons and achieve maturity to accept death, whereas Voldemort chooses to evade death, separating and hiding the seven parts of his soul. Harry's soul is whole, nourished by friendship and love. At the end of the series he is secure in the lessons Dumbledore imparted, "It's the unknown that we fear when we fear death, nothing more".

Like death, in Harry's world truth is mutable. Although he seeks truth about his family, he himself lies to others. Truth is revealed gradually and when it comes it often hides more than is revealed. Each book follows a similar structure in which Harry unravels increasingly painful truths.

Unlike other children's classics that espouse world-changing political or evangelical views, Harry Potter is a simple fantasy incorporating the overarching theme of good vs. evil. The story fits directly into the European tradition of the lost prince, whose leadership, character, and heroism are intrinsic, "born in the blood"; the revelation of his powers and position indicates a return to the natural order. Farah Mendlesohn writes that Harry Potter takes place in a world with a conventional political outlook, and reflects the status quo of liberalism in the United Kingdom, which rejects the "subversive opportunities available to the fantasist". Yet the series is often viewed as a Christian moral fable evoking the psychomachia tradition, in which stand-ins for good and evil fight for supremacy over a person's soul, with similarities to The Chronicles of Narnia, suffused with Christian symbolism, according to children's literature critic Joy Farmer, who sees many parallels between Harry and Jesus Christ.

Characters

Characters in the series, even the intellectual Hermione Granger, seldom consider the philosophical or ethical implications of their actions directly. Moral questions are addressed through personal emotions and not intellectual consideration. The critic Lakshmi Chaudhry sees this as an aspect of the series's "moral fuzziness", whereas Mary Pharr argues that the absence of moral clarity derives from Harry Potter's postmodernism—in the postmodern world, there are no moral absolutes.

The critics Katrin Berndt and Lena Steveker argue Harry Potter is a hero, but of a different sort than previous heroes in literature. Instead of male heroes in older literary genres such as epic and romance, who are defined by moral qualities such as courage and valiance, Harry's heroism is based on "sympathy and compassion". Michiko Kakutani considers the Harry Potter series an epic in which Harry confronts questions including personal independence and free will.

Mary Pharr casts Harry as an "epic hero for the postmodern world" because he acts based on empathy for others as opposed to a moral code or religious doctrine. As opposed to Tom Riddle, who becomes Lord Voldemort, Harry typically acts through empathy towards others despite personal risk. According to John Granger, the series reflects a moral sensibility of political correctness in that the protagonists oppose prejudice. The role of love, for Granger, is a central theme in Harry Potter and a dividing line between Harry and Voldemort: Harry is a hero because he loves others; Voldemort is a villain because he does not.

The Great Snape Debate, a book-length collection of essays assessing the character Severus Snape, appeared in 2007. The book is divided into two sections, written by the same authors, in which Snape is alternately praised and critiqued. Alison Lurie, among other critics, has noted how the names of Rowling's characters typically evoke their personalities.

Ordinary and extraordinary

The critic Lisa Hopkins views heroism, for Rowling, as something within reach for "ordinary people". Like heroes highlighted through aristeias in the Iliad, she suggests, individual characters in Harry Potter can each have their moment in the sun. Roni Natov likewise emphasises the way magic renders everyday objects, such as paintings, books, and candy, extraordinary. Eva Oppermann, following Michel Foucault, terms the blending of natural and supernatural settings in Harry Potter a heterotopia. Taking a negative view of Rowling's blend of the ordinary and extraordinary, John Pennington argues that Harry Potter is a "failed fantasy" because it does not depart sufficiently from everyday, unmagical life.

Other work

Casual Vacancy is set in Pagford, a village in the West Country, after the death of the village councillor Barry Fairbrother. The main controversy in Pagford concerns whether the town will keep the Fields, a housing estate, within its municipal boundaries. Pro- and anti-Fields contingents emerge among the candidates for Fairbrother's seat and the candidates' children wreak havoc, revealing salacious secrets hidden from public view. Casual Vacancy combines comedy with tragedy. Its publisher promoted the novel as a black comedy, while the critic Ian Parker described it in The New Yorker as a "rural comedy of manners". The critic Tison Pugh and Rowling herself describe the novel as a contemporary take on 19th-century British fiction examining village life such as in Austen's novels and George Eliot's Middlemarch; the latter inspired "Mugglemarch", the title of Parker's New Yorker review. The novel received some positive, some middling, and some negative reviews.

Pugh classes Cormoran Strike as hardboiled detective fiction. The eponymous protagonist is a private investigator in his mid-thirties who grows to depend on Robin Venetia Ellacott, a younger woman who works for him. Cormoran, unfriendly and sometimes oblivious, nonetheless acts with a deep moral sensibility. In the series' five novels, the first of which was released in 2013, Ellacott and Cormoran investigate grisly murders including that of Owen Quine, the victim in The Silkworm (2014), whose corpse is served as dinner. Critics have spoken well of the Strike series, even as some note that the plots are occasionally contrived.

Reception

The Harry Potter series, particularly following the release of Prisoner of Azkaban in September 1999 and Goblet of Fire on 8 July 2000, has enjoyed enormous commercial success and attention from academic critics. It was adapted into the Harry Potter film series, whose first instalment was released in 2001; and its books have been translated into at least 60 languages. The series has also come in for sustained opposition, particularly by Christian groups who claim that the books promote witchcraft. In late 1999, writer Nancy Stouffer sued Rowling for copyright infringement. Neither of Rowling's later works, The Casual Vacancy (2012) and the Cormoran Strike series, have been as well received as Harry Potter.

The Harry Potter series have been described as including complex and varied representations of female characters, but nonetheless ultimately conforming to stereotypical and patriarchal depictions of gender. The ostensible absence of gender divides in the books' setting obscures the typecasting of female characters and traditional depictions of gender. According to scholars Elizabeth Heilman and Trevor Donaldson, the subordination of female characters goes further early in the series. The final three books "showcase richer roles and more powerful females": for instance, the series' "most matriarchal character", Molly Weasley, engages substantially in the final battle of Deathly Hallows, while a number of other women are shown in postions of leadership. Yet, even particularly capable female characters such as Hermione Granger and Minerva McGonagall are ultimately placed in supporting roles. More generally, the girls and women are more frequently depicted as emotional; more often defined by their appearance; and less often given agency in familial settings.

Legacy

Harry Potter has been credited with revolutionising the landscape of children's literature. Since the late 1980s, children's fantasy had been in decline due to an increasing interest in grim, violent themes; publishers were also unfriendly to the field, viewing it of interest only to a minority. The commercial success of Harry Potter in 1997 reversed this trend: fantasy became a dominant genre in the children's market. A number of older works in the genre, such as Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series and Diane Duane's Young Wizards, were reprinted and saw increased popularity as a result; some authors were able to re-establish their careers. Harry Potter's success even led the New York Times to create a separate children's bestseller list, whose purpose, according to the scholars Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn, was to save adult novels from "the embarrassment of being outdone by a children's book".

Rowling has described Harry Potter fandom as a "global phenomenon". Levy and Mendlesohn attribute this success to a number of factors: the endearing nature of Rowling's characters, the nostalgia of the boarding-school story, and the accessibility of her books in terms of prose and plot to non-readers. They also credit her simple themes that were "not too challenging to the young (or adult) reader’s intellect", in contrast to more complex ideas in the works of Le Guin and Yolen. The critic Tammy Turner-Vorbeck analyses Harry Potter's cultural impact, sometimes called "Pottermania", with a neo-Marxist perspective. She argues that Pottermania has contributed to the commercialisation of childhood.

Harry Potter's popularity led its publishers to plan elaborate releases and spawned a textual afterlife among fans and forgers. Beginning with the release of Goblet of Fire in 2000, its publishers coordinated to begin selling the books at a single time globally, introduced security protocols to prevent premature purchases, and required booksellers to sign contracts promising not to sell copies before the appointed time. At the same time, knockoff Harry Potter books, copycats, and parodies emerged to capitalize on its commercial success. Driven by the growth of internet access and use around its initial publication, fan fiction about the series proliferated and has spawned a diverse community of readers and writers. In the decades following Harry Potter, many subversive responses also became popular; in Levy and Mendlesohn's view, this has led to "a second golden age of children's fantasy" (the first such age being after the second world war).

The Harry Potter books gained recognition for the unproven assertion of their potential to improve literacy by motivating children to read much more than they otherwise would. Research by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found no increase in reading among children coinciding with the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon, nor was the broader downward trend in reading among Americans arrested during the rise in the popularity of the Harry Potter books.

Legal disputes

Main article: Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series

Rowling, her publishers, and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken legal action on many occasions to protect their copyright. 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. Rowling and her publishers obtained a series of injunctions prohibiting public readings of her books prior to their release dates, which civil liberties and free speech campaigners criticised, claiming the "right to read".

Philanthropy

In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust to "work to alleviate social deprivation, with a particular emphasis on supporting women, children and young people at risk". Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded Lumos in 2005 (then known as the Children's High Level Group, CHLG). Rowling became president of the charity Gingerbread (originally One Parent Families) in 2004, after becoming their first Ambassador in 2000.

Rowling was the second most generous UK donor in 2015 (following singer Elton John), giving about US$14 million through the Volant Charitable Trust and the Lumos Foundation.

Social welfare

Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to benefit the One Parent Families.

To support the CHLG, in 2007 Rowling auctioned a handwritten and illustrated copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, that online bookseller Amazon.com purchased for £1.95 million. Rowling later published the book to benefit Lumos, and in 2013, donated the proceeds of nearly £19 million to the organisation.

Profits from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, both published in 2001, went to Comic Relief.

Medical

Rowling has contributed to support research and treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). Initially a contributor to the Scottish affiliate of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, she withdrew her support in 2009 after drawing attention to internal disputes in the organisation. In 2010, she donated £10 million to found a MS research centre at the University of Edinburgh, named in honour of her mother Anne, who died of MS.

Through the Volant Charitable Trust, Rowling donated six-figure sums from The Ickabog royalites to both Khalsa Aid and the British Asian Trust, supporting those affected by COVID-19.

An inflatable representation of Lord Voldemort and other children's literary characters accompanied Rowling reading from J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan as part of a tribute to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London.

Other

In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers to compose a short piece 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.

After her exposure as the true author of The Cuckoo's Calling led to a massive increase in sales, Rowling donated her royalties to the Army Benevolent Fund, saying she had always intended to but never expected the book to be a best-seller.

Views

Politics

See also: Politics of J. K. Rowling and Politics of Harry Potter

Rowling has centre-left political views. In 2008, she donated £1 million to the Labour Party and publicly endorsed Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown over Conservative challenger David Cameron, praising Labour's policies on child poverty. That same year, in an interview with the Spanish-language newspaper El País, when asked about the 2008 United States presidential election, she said that the outcome would have a "profound effect on the rest of the world". Regarding who she wanted to see elected, she stated that "it is a pity that Clinton and Obama have to be rivals because both are extraordinary". In the same interview, she identified Robert F. Kennedy as her hero.

In Rowling's "Single mother's manifesto", published in The Times in April 2010, she criticised then–Conservative Prime Minister Cameron's plan to encourage married couples to stay together by offering them a £150 annual tax credit: "Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say 'it's not the money, it's the message'. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money."

Rowling stated in 2012 that she is "pro-Union" and would vote 'No' on the 2014 Scottish independence referendum; she donated £1 million to the Better Together anti-independence campaign. She compared some Scottish Nationalists with the Death Eaters, characters from Harry Potter who are scornful of those without pure blood. In June 2016, she campaigned for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union in the run-up to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, stating, "I'm the mongrel product of this European continent and I'm an internationalist." She expressed concern that "racists and bigots" were directing parts of the Leave campaign. In a blog post, she added: "How can a retreat into selfish and insecure individualism be the right response when Europe faces genuine threats, when the bonds that tie us are so powerful, when we have come so far together?"

In 2015, Rowling joined 150 others in signing a letter published in The Guardian espousing cultural engagement with Israel. Rowling expanded on her position, stating that although she opposed most of Benjamin Netanyahu's actions, depriving Israelis of shared culture would not dislodge Netanyahu, and that "sharing of art and literature across borders constitutes an immense power for good".

Religion

See also: Religious debates over the Harry Potter series

Rowling identifies as a Christian, stating that "I believe in God, not magic." She began attending a Church of Scotland congregation around the time she was writing Harry Potter, and her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.

In a 2006 interview with Tatler, Rowling noted that, "like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me." She has said that she has struggled with doubt, that she believes in an afterlife, and that her faith plays a part in her books. In a 2012 radio interview, Rowling stated that she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.

Press

Rowling relationship with the press is difficult. She admits to being "thin-skinned" and disliking the inconsistent nature of journalism. By 2011, Rowling had taken more than 50 actions against the press. Rowling has expressed dislike of the British tabloid Daily Mail, which has conducted several 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]." In 2014, she successfully sued the Mail for libel over an article about her time as a single mother. There has been speculation that Rowling's relationship with the press inspired the character Rita Skeeter, a gossipy celebrity journalist who first appears in Goblet of Fire, but according to Rowling the character's development predates her rise to fame.

In September 2011, Rowling was named as a "core participant" in the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press, as one of dozens of celebrities who may have been the victim of phone hacking. In November 2012, Rowling wrote an op-ed for The Guardian in response to David Cameron's decision not to implement the full recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, stating that she felt "duped and angry". In 2014, Rowling reaffirmed her support for "Hacked Off", a campaign supporting the self-regulation of the press, by co-signing a declaration to "[safeguard] the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable" with other British celebrities.

Transgender people

See also: Politics of J. K. Rowling § Transgender people

In December 2019, Rowling tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, a British woman who initially lost her employment tribunal case (Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development) but won on appeal against her former employer, the Center for Global Development, after her contract was not renewed due to her comments about transgender people. She defended a British researcher :"Dress however you please," Rowling wrote on Twitter at the time. "Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?"

On 6 June 2020, Rowling tweeted criticism of the phrase "people who menstruate", and stated "If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives." Rowling's tweets were criticised by GLAAD, who called them "cruel" and "anti-trans". Some members of the cast of the Harry Potter film series criticised Rowling's views or spoke out in support of trans rights, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, and Katie Leung, as did Fantastic Beasts lead actor Eddie Redmayne and the fansites MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron. The actress Noma Dumezweni (who played Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) initially expressed support for Rowling but backtracked following criticism.

On 10 June 2020, Rowling published a 3,600-word essay on her website in response to the criticism. She again wrote that many women consider terms like "people who menstruate" to be demeaning. She said that she was a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault, and stated that "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman ... then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside", while stating that most trans people were vulnerable and deserved protection. Reuters reported that, in the United States, women's rights groups said in 2016 that 200 municipalities which allowed trans people to use women's shelters reported no rise in any violence as a result; they also said that excluding transgender people from facilities consistent with their gender makes them vulnerable to assault. Rowling's essay was criticised by, among others, the children's charity Mermaids (which supports transgender and gender non-conforming children and their parents), Stonewall, GLAAD and the feminist gender theorist Judith Butler. Rowling has been referred to as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) on multiple occasions, though she rejects the label. Rowling has received support from actors Robbie Coltrane and Eddie Izzard, and some feminists such as activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the radical feminist Julie Bindel. The essay was nominated by the BBC for their annual Russell Prize for best writing.

In August 2020, Rowling returned her Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award after Kerry Kennedy released a statement expressing her "profound disappointment" in Rowling's "attacks upon the transgender community", which Kennedy called "inconsistent with the fundamental beliefs and values of RFK Human Rights and ... a repudiation of my father's vision". Rowling stated that she was "deeply saddened" by Kennedy's statement, but maintained that no award would encourage her to "forfeit the right to follow the dictates" of her conscience.

Awards and honours

Rowling, after receiving an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen

Rowling has received honorary degrees from the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Exeter (which she attended), the University of Aberdeen, and Harvard University, where she spoke at the 2008 commencement ceremony. In 2009, Rowling was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2002, Rowling became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (HonFRSE) as well a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). She was further recognized as Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE) in 2011 for services to Literature and Philanthropy.

Other awards include:

• 1997: Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, Gold Award for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
• 1998: Nestlé 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: Nestlé 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: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 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 Príncipe 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 Awards Book of the Year, winner for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
• 2007: Blue Peter Badge, Gold
• 2007: Named Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating Person of the year
• 2008: British Book Awards, Outstanding Achievement
• 2008: The Edinburgh Award
• 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
• 2012: Rowling was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life.
• 2017: Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) at the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to literature and philanthropy.
• 2018: Tony Award for Best Play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as part of the team of the Harry Potter Theatrical Productions.
• 2021: British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Award, winner for Troubled Blood.

Publications

Children

• The Ickabog (10 November 2020)
• The Christmas Pig (12 October 2021)

Young adults

Harry Potter series

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997)
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007)

Related works

• 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)
• Harry Potter prequel (short story) (July 2008)
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard (supplement to the Harry Potter series) (4 December 2008)
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (story concept) (31 July 2016)
• Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists (6 September 2016)
• Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies (6 September 2016)
• Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide (6 September 2016)
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Original Screenplay) (19 November 2016)
• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Original Screenplay) (16 November 2018)

Adults

• The Casual Vacancy (27 September 2012)

Cormoran Strike series (as Robert Galbraith)

1. The Cuckoo's Calling (18 April 2013)
2. The Silkworm (19 June 2014)
3. Career of Evil (20 October 2015)
4. Lethal White (18 September 2018)
5. Troubled Blood (15 September 2020)

Other

Non-fiction

• McNeil, Gil and Brown, Sarah, editors (2002). Foreword to the anthology Magic. Bloomsbury.
• Brown, Gordon (2006). Introduction to "Ending Child Poverty" in Moving Britain Forward. Selected Speeches 1997–2006. Bloomsbury.
• Sussman, Peter Y., editor (26 July 2006). "The First It Girl: J. K. Rowling reviews Decca: the Letters by Jessica Mitford". The Daily Telegraph.
• Anelli, Melissa (2008). Foreword to Harry, A History. Pocket Books.
• Rowling, J. K. (5 June 2008). "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination". Harvard Magazine.
• Rowling, J. K. Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and Importance of Imagination, illustrated by Joel Holland, Sphere, 14 April 2015, 80 pages (ISBN 978-1-4087-0678-7).
• Rowling, J. K. (30 April 2009). "Gordon Brown – The 2009 Time 100". Time magazine.
• Rowling, J. K. (14 April 2010). "The Single Mother's Manifesto". The Times.
• Rowling, J. K. (30 November 2012). "I feel duped and angry at David Cameron's reaction to Leveson". The Guardian.
• Rowling, J. K. (17 December 2014). "Isn't it time we left orphanages to fairytales?" The Guardian.
• Rowling, J. K. (guest editor) (28 April 2014). "Woman's Hour Takeover". Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4.
• Rowling, J. K. (contributor) (31 October 2019) "A Love Letter to Europe".

Filmography

Year	Title	Credited as				Notes	Ref.
		Actress	Screenwriter	Producer	Executive producer
2003	The Simpsons	Yes				Voice cameo in "The Regina Monologues"
2010	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1			Yes		Film based on her novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2011	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2			Yes
2015	The Casual Vacancy				Yes	Television miniseries based on her novel The Casual Vacancy
2016	Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them		Yes	Yes		Film inspired by her Harry Potter supplementary book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
2017–present	Strike				Yes	Television series based on her Cormoran Strike novels
2018	Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald		Yes	Yes		Film inspired by her Harry Potter supplementary book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

References

Works cited

• Anelli, Melissa (2008). Harry, a History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 978-1-4165-5495-0. OCLC 209699636.
• Berndt, Katrin; Steveker, Lena, eds. (22 April 2016). Heroism in the Harry Potter Series. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315586748. ISBN 978-1-317-12211-1.
• Duggan, Jennifer (28 March 2021). "Transformative Readings: Harry Potter Fan Fiction, Trans/Queer Reader Response, and J. K. Rowling". Children's Literature in Education. doi:10.1007/s10583-021-09446-9. ISSN 0045-6713.
• Eberhardt, Maeve (2017). "Gendered representations through speech: The case of the Harry Potter series". Language and Literature. 26 (3): 227–246. doi:10.1177/0963947017701851.
• Farmer, Joy (2001). "The Magician's Niece: The Kinship between J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis". Mythlore. 23 (2): 53–64. ISSN 0146-9339. JSTOR 26814627.
• Fraser, Lindsey (2001). Conversations with J.K. Rowling. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 0-439-31455-0. OCLC 46579464.
• Groves, Beatrice (14 June 2017). Literary Allusion in Harry Potter. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315269337. ISBN 978-1-315-26933-7.
• Gupta, Suman (2009). Re-Reading Harry Potter (2d ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230279711. ISBN 978-0-230-21958-8.
• Heilman, Elizabeth E., ed. (7 August 2008). Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2d ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203892817. ISBN 978-1-135-89154-1.
• Kirk, Connie Ann (2003). J.K. Rowling: A Biography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32205-8. OCLC 49991592.
• Levy, Michael; Mendlesohn, Farah (2016). Children's Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139087421. ISBN 978-1-107-01814-3.
• Los, Fraser (2008). "Harry Potter and the Nature of Death". Alternatives Journal. 34 (1): 32–33. JSTOR 45033580.
• Mendlesohn, Farah (2001). "Crowning the King: Harry Potter and the Construction of Authority". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 12 (3): 287–308. ISSN 0897-0521. JSTOR 43308531.
• Natov, Roni (2001). "Harry Potter and the Extraordinariness of the Ordinary". The Lion and the Unicorn. 25 (2): 310–327. doi:10.1353/uni.2001.0024. ISSN 1080-6563. Project MUSE 35514.
• Nel, Philip (2001). J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-5232-9. OCLC 47050453.
• Oppermann, Eva (2018). "The Heterotopian Qualities of the Fantasy Worlds in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Books and Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 29 (3): 402–421. ISSN 0897-0521. JSTOR 26728148.
• Pennington, John (2002). "From Elfland to Hogwarts, or the Aesthetic Trouble with Harry Potter". The Lion and the Unicorn. 26 (1): 78–97. doi:10.1353/uni.2002.0008. ISSN 1080-6563. Project MUSE 35536.
• Pugh, Tison (2020). Harry Potter and Beyond: On J. K. Rowling's Fantasies and Other Fictions. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-64336-088-1. OCLC 1142046769.
• Pugh, Tison; Wallace, David L. (Fall 2006). "Heteronormative Heroism and Queering the School Story in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 31 (3): 260–281. doi:10.1353/chq.2006.0053.
• Shapiro, Marc (2000). J.K. Rowling: The Wizard behind Harry Potter. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-27224-3. OCLC 44313263.
• Stojilkov, Andrea (2015). "Life(and)Death in 'Harry Potter': The Immortality of Love and Soul". Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal. 48 (2): 133–148. ISSN 0027-1276. JSTOR 44030425.
• Striphas, Theodore G. (2011). "Harry Potter and the Culture of the Copy". The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Vulture from Consumerism to Control. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 141–174. ISBN 978-0-231-14814-6. OCLC 256532755.
• Whited, Lana A., ed. (2002). The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6330-8. OCLC 56424948.

External links

• Official website
• J. K. Rowling on Twitter
• J. K. Rowling on Facebook
• J. K. Rowling at British Council: Literature
• J. K. Rowling at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• J. K. Rowling at IMDb
• Works by J. K. Rowling at Open Library
• Library resources in your library and in other libraries about J.K. Rowling
• Library resources in your library and in other libraries by J.K. Rowling