J. K. Rowling

Standard Name: Rowling, J. K.
Birth Name: Joanne Rowling
Self-constructed Name: Joanne Kathleen Rowling
Pseudonym: Robert Galbraith
JKR , late-twentieth- and twenty-first-century author of children's books which are phenomenally popular, has published the fastest-selling series in history and has made a fortune from her writing. Her Harry Potter series features an alternative world mapped out in elaborate detail, in which magic of all kinds is a serious practice and the focus of an intricate school syllabus, and in which her hero and his friends confront the forces of evil. She also has published in other genres: detective fiction and the literary novel.
Informal photograph of J. K. Rowling, leaning forward in a white chair in front of a green background, hands clasped on a book in her lap. She wears a pale cardigan over a colourful dress. Her blonde hair is pulled back and she dangling white teardrop earrings.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin denied that the wizard school in J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter series constituted plagiarism; Rowling, she said simply learned from her. But she was not impressed by Rowling, finding the Harry Potter...
Intertextuality and Influence Malorie Blackman
Laura Steven has written of how she graduated from Harry PotterJ. K. Rowling to Noughts and Crosses, and how her political views were shaped and matured by her reading of that and other young adult fiction.
Steven, Laura. “Agenda. Could YA Fiction Swing the Next Election?”. Mslexia, Vol.
76
, Dec. 2017, pp. 5-8.
6
Literary responses Ursula K. Le Guin
Nicholas Lezard 's Guardian review (headed Forget Harry Potter . . . . J. K. Rowling) called this book a masterpiece of chilling narration. Lezard ended with praise of its style and its humour (a rare quality...
Literary responses Dodie Smith
Initially, the novel had a great vogue among adolescent girls, but others admired it as well. DS 's friend Christopher Isherwood wrote a letter to her full of praise for the novel: Your tremendous strength...
Literary responses Elizabeth Goudge
This book was awarded the Carnegie Medal on its first appearance. An early twenty-first-century paperback reprint bears a recommendation from bestseller J. K. Rowling , saying that it was her favourite childhood book. I absolutely...
Author summary P. L. Travers
PLT , poet, editor, essayist, critic, travel writer, and novelist, who was born in Australia but wrote mostly in England, is best known for her Mary Poppins books, generally classified as for children. All her...
Textual Production Joanna Trollope
JT caused a small furore when at Hatchards authors of the year party in London, May 2017, she weighed in on fellow-author J. K. Rowling for assuming celebrity status, for over-exposure on Twitter , and...
Textual Production Noel Streatfeild
In 1961 NS had the honour of appearing in Bodley Head 's series of monographs on children's writers, where she joined such household names as Mary Louisa Molesworth , Juliana Horatia Ewing , Lewis Carroll
Textual Production Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Her copious manuscripts survive at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland (which has lately acquired worldwide recognition value as the Hogwarts of the J. K. RowlingHarry Potter films).
Wealth and Poverty Elizabeth Jennings
Her eccentricity may have been chosen, but in her last two decades she was near destitute. Rather like the younger J. K. Rowling , she would economize on heat at home by sitting and writing...

Timeline

1977: The Guardian Award for Children's Books went...

Women writers item

1977

The Guardian Award for Children's Books went to Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones , about an ambitious young enchantress holed up in a castle,
Ashby, Melanie. “Diana Wynne Jones”. Mslexia, No. 26, July 2005, pp. 46-8.
48
which, she says, revisits the trope of the isolated...

: Oneword Radio, with offices in London, was...

Building item

By Summer 2000

Oneword Radio , with offices in London, was set up to broadcast to readers: the bulk of its programming came from audiobooks read serially, sometimes though not always abridged.
Kent, Paul. “Oneword”. The Author, Vol.
cxii
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2001, pp. 30-1.
30
Oneword Radio. http://www.oneword.co.uk/.
Mslexia. Mslexia Publications.
14 (2002): 6
Teller, Neville. “To the Editor”. The Author, Vol.
121
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2010, p. 36.
36

December 2001: Women writers for the first time outnumbered...

Women writers item

December 2001

Women writers for the first time outnumbered men in the Guardian newspaper's annual listing of the fastest-selling paperbacks in Britain.
Gibbons, Fiachra. “Women lead the way in ’hottest’ books list”. The Guardian, 29 Dec. 2001, p. 5.
5

December 2002: A postcard on which J. K. Rowling had written...

Women writers item

December 2002

A postcard on which J. K. Rowling had written out 93 words from her still unpublished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, contained in a sealed envelope, was auctioned to raise money...

21 May 2013: Sotheby's held an auction of fifty contemporary...

Writing climate item

21 May 2013

Sotheby's held an auction of fifty contemporary first editions annotated for the purpose of this sale by their authors. A total of £439,200 was raised for English PEN , of which £150,000 (the highest price)...

November 2014: Emma Watson, the young performer who played...

Building item

November 2014

Emma Watson , the young performer who played Hermione Grainger in the films of J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter books, made a speech on gender equality, by invitation, to the United Nations assembly in New York.
Kamen, Paula. “Unfun Feminism”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
33
, No. 5, Sept.–Oct. 2016, pp. 3-5.
4

Texts

Rowling, J. K. Career of Evil. Little, Brown, 2015.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Bloomsbury, 1998.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, 2007.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Bloomsbury, 2000.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Bloomsbury, 2005.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, 2003.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Bloomsbury, 1997.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Bloomsbury, 1998.
Rowling, J. K. Lethal White. Sphere, 2018.
Rowling, J. K. Pottermore. http://www.pottermore.com/.
Rowling, J. K. The Casual Vacancy. Little, Brown, 2012.
Rowling, J. K. The Cuckoo’s Calling. Little, Brown; Sphere, 2013.
Rowling, J. K. The Silkworm. Little, Brown, 2014.
Rowling, J. K. Very Good Lives. Little, Brown, 2015.
Rowling, J. K. “Who Do You Think You Are?”. BBC One.