Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist and author of Harry Potter, a seven-volume series about a young wizard. Published from 1997 to 2007, the fantasy novels are the best-selling book series in history, with over 600 million copies sold. They have been translated into 84 languages and have spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias 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. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the 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. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes had named her the world’s highest-paid author.
The novels follow a boy called Harry Potter as he attends Hogwarts (a school for wizards), and battles Lord Voldemort. Death and the divide between good and evil are the central themes of the series. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), school stories, fairy tales, and Christian allegory. The series revived fantasy as a genre in the children’s market, spawned a host of imitators, and inspired an active fandom. Critical reception has been more mixed. Many reviewers see Rowling’s writing as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive. There were also religious debates over the Harry Potter series.
Rowling has won many accolades for her work. She was named to the Order of the British Empire and was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy. Harry Potter brought her wealth and recognition, which she has used to advance philanthropic endeavours and political causes. She established the Volant Charitable Trust in 2000, and co-founded the charity Lumos in 2005. Rowling’s philanthropy centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children. In 2025, Forbes estimated that Rowling’s charitable giving exceeded US$200 million. She has also donated to the British Labour Party, and opposed Scottish independence and Brexit.
Beginning in 2019, Rowling began making public remarks about transgender people, in opposition to the notion that gender identity differs from birth sex. She has been condemned as transphobic by LGBTQ rights groups, some Harry Potter fans, and various other critics, including academics, which has affected her public image and relationship with readers and colleagues, altering the way they engage with her works.
Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling with no middle name, nicknamed Jo. Staff at Bloomsbury Publishing suggested that she use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating that young boys – their target audience – would not want to read a book written by a woman. She chose K as the second initial, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Rowling, and because of the ease of pronunciation of the two consecutive letters. Following her 2001 remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business.
Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in June 1995. The initial draft included an illustration of Harry by a fireplace, showing a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. Following an enthusiastic report from an early reader, Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to represent Rowling. Her manuscript was submitted to twelve publishers, all of which rejected it. Barry Cunningham, who ran the children’s literature department at Bloomsbury Publishing, bought it after Nigel Newton, who headed Bloomsbury at the time, saw his eight-year-old daughter finish one chapter and want to keep reading. Rowling recalls Cunningham telling her, “You’ll never make any money out of children’s books, Jo.” Rowling was awarded a writer’s grant by the Scottish Arts Council to support her childcare costs and finances before Philosopher’s Stone’s publication, and to aid in writing the sequel, Chamber of Secrets. On 26 June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print run of 5,650 copies. Before Chamber of Secrets was published, Rowling had received £2,800 ($4,200) in royalties.
Philosopher’s Stone introduces Harry Potter. Harry is a wizard who lives with his non-magical relatives until his eleventh birthday, when he is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rowling wrote six sequels, which follow Harry’s adventures at Hogwarts with friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley and his attempts to defeat Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents when he was a child.
Rowling received the news that the US rights were being auctioned at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. To her surprise and delight, Scholastic Corporation bought the rights for $105,000. She bought a flat in Edinburgh with the money from the sale. Arthur A. Levine, head of the imprint at Scholastic, pushed for a name change. He wanted Harry Potter and the School of Magic; as a compromise Rowling suggested Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Sorcerer’s Stone was released in the United States in September 1998. It was not widely reviewed, but the reviews it received were generally positive. Sorcerer’s Stone became a New York Times bestseller by December.
The next three books in the series were released in quick succession between 1998 and 2000, each selling millions of copies. When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had not appeared by 2002, rumours circulated that Rowling was suffering writer’s block. Rowling denied these rumours, stating the 896-page book took three years to write because of its length. It was published in June 2003, selling millions of copies on the first day. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released two years later in July 2005, again selling millions of copies on the first day. The series ended with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in July 2007.
Rowling’s Harry Potter series has won awards for general literature, children’s literature, and speculative fiction. It has earned multiple British Book Awards, beginning with the Children’s Book of the Year for the first two volumes, Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets. The third novel, Prisoner of Azkaban, was nominated for an adult award, the Whitbread Book of the Year, where it competed against the Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. The award body gave Rowling the children’s prize instead (worth half the cash amount), which some scholars felt exemplified a literary prejudice against children’s books. She won the World Science Fiction Convention’s Hugo Award for the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, and the British Book Awards’ adult prize – the Book of the Year – for the sixth novel, Half-Blood Prince.
Rowling was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours for services to children’s literature, and three years later received Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for Concord. Following the conclusion of the Harry Potter series, she won the Outstanding Achievement Prize at the 2008 British Book Awards. The next year, she was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and leading magazine editors named her the “Most Influential Woman in the UK” in 2010. In the 2017 Birthday Honours, Rowling was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) for services to literature and philanthropy.
Many academic institutions have bestowed honorary degrees on Rowling, including her alma mater, the University of Exeter, and Harvard University, where she spoke at the 2008 commencement ceremony. In 2002, Rowling was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) and awarded as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (HonFRSE). In 2011, she was recognised as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE).
Rowling shared the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema with the cast and crew of the Harry Potter films in 2011. Her other awards include the 2017 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the 2021 British Book Awards’ Crime and Thriller prize for the fifth volume of her Cormoran Strike series.
| Book | Author | Original language | First published | Approximate sales | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone | J. K. Rowling | English | 1997 | 120 million | Fantasy |