For what novel did J. K. Rowling win the 1999 Whitbread Children's book of the year award?
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J._K._Rowling.txt 1999_Whitbread_Awards.txt Harry_Potter.txt
J. K. Rowling 1999 Whitbread Awards Harry Potter
Joanne  "Jo" Rowling,  (; born 31 July 1965), pen names J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, is a British novelist, screenwriter and film producer best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.  They have become the best-selling book series in history  and been the basis for a series of films which is the second highest-grossing film series in history.  Rowling had overall approval on the scripts  and maintained creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment. 

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. 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 she finished the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in 1997. There were six sequels, the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in 2007. Since then, Rowling has written four books for adult readers, The Casual Vacancy (2012) and—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the crime fiction novels The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) and Career of Evil (2015). 

Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on state benefits to multi-millionaire status within five years. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling living author, with sales in excess of £238m.  The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK.  Time magazine named her as 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, Rowling was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors.  She has supported charities including Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group).

Name

Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling" (pronounced rolling),Rowling, J.K. (16 February 2007). [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1998/autobiography.html "The Not Especially Fascinating Life So Far of J.K. Rowling"]. Accio Quote (accio-quote.org). Retrieved 28 April 2008. her name, before her remarriage, 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 asked that she use two initials rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K (for "Kathleen") as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother.  She calls herself "Jo".Shelagh, Rogers (23 October 2000). "Interview: J.K. Rowling". This Morning. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1023-thismorning-rogers.html Reprint] at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). 28 July 2007. Retrieved 24 December 2013. Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business.[http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2143434,00.html "Judge rules against J.K. Rowling in privacy case"]. Guardian Unlimited. 7 August 2007. Retrieved 21 August 2007.Greig, Geordie (10 January 2006). [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1507438/There-would-be-so-much-to-tell-her....html "There would be so much to tell her ..."]. Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 8 August 2010. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling  and her entry in Who's Who lists her name as Joanne Kathleen Rowling. 

Biography

Birth and family

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer,  and Anne Rowling (née Volant), a science technician, on 31 July 1965   in Yate,  Gloucestershire, England, 10 mi northeast of Bristol.   Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. One of her maternal great-grandfathers, Dugald Campbell, was Scottish, born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran.   Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was French, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War. Rowling originally believed he had won the Légion d'honneur during the war, as she said when she received it herself in 2009. She later discovered the truth when featured in an episode of the UK genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, in which she found out it was a different Louis Volant who won the Legion of Honour. When she heard his story of bravery and discovered the croix de guerre was for "ordinary" soldiers like her grandfather, who had been a waiter, she stated the croix de guerre was "better" to her than the Legion of Honour. 

Childhood and education

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 frequently read to her sister. Aged nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department.Smith, Sean (2003), J.K. Rowling: A Biography (Michael O'Mara, London), p. 55. When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels.Rowling, J.K. (26 November 2006). [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml/arts/2006/11/26/bomit05.xml The first It Girl]. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 October 2007. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling read all of her books.Fraser, Lindsey (2 November 2002). "Harry Potter – Harry and me". The Scotsman. Interview with Rowling, edited excerpt from Conversations with J.K. Rowling. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2002/1102-fraser-scotsman.html Reprint] at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). 31 May 2003; last updated 12 February 2007. Retrieved 6 December 2014.

Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's illness and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms. Rowling later said that she based the character of Hermione Granger on herself when she was eleven.Feldman, Roxanne (September 1999). "The Truth about Harry". School Library Journal. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/0999-slj-feldman.htm Reprint] at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). Retrieved 2014-12-06. 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 a flying version that appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  At this time, she listened to the Smiths and the Clash.  Rowling took A-levels in English, French and German, achieving two As and a B and was Head Girl.

In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not accepted and read for a B.A. in French and Classics at the University of Exeter.Fraser, Lindsey. Conversations with J.K. Rowling, p. 34. Scholastic. 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 listen to The Smiths and read Dickens and Tolkien. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986 and moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.Norman-Culp, Sheila (23 November 1998). "British author rides up the charts on a wizard's tale". Associated Press Newswires. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1998/1198-ap-normanculp.html Reprint] at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). 24 February 2007. Retrieved 6 December 2007. In 1988, Rowling wrote a short essay about her time studying Classics entitled "What was the Name of that Nymph Again? or Greek and Roman Studies Recalled"; it was published by the University of Exeter's journal Pegasus. 

Inspiration and mother's death

After working at Amnesty International in London, Rowling and her then boyfriend decided to move to Manchester, where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce.McGinty, Stephen (16 June 2003). [http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id662772003 "The J.K. Rowling Story"]. The Scotsman. Retrieved 9 April 2006. 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.Loer, Stephanie (18 October 1999). "All about Harry Potter from quidditch to the future of the Sorting Hat". The Boston Globe. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/1099-bostonglobe-loer.html Reprint] at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). No date. Retrieved 10 October 2007.

When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately."Harry Potter and Me". BBC Christmas Special. 2001. A&E Biography (American edition), 13 November 2002. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2002/1102-aebiography.htm Reprint] (part 1 of 5) at Accio Quote! (accio-quote.org). Retrieved 25 February 2007. In December, Rowling's mother Anne died after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis. Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it. Her death heavily affected Rowling's writing, and she channeled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry's own feelings of loss in greater detail in the first book. 

Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood

An advert in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language. She taught at night and began writing in the day while listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. After 18 months in Porto, 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. Rowling had previously suffered a miscarriage. 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 Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near Rowling's sister 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.  Her illness inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.  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.  In a 2001 BBC interview, Rowling denied the rumour that she wrote in local cafés to escape from her unheated flat, pointing out that it had heating. One of the reasons she wrote in cafés was that taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.

Harry Potter

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 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 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, 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.

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. 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year.[http://www.cesnur.org/recens/potter_048.htm "Potter sales record"]. Reuters/PRNewswire. 11 July 2000. Retrieved 25 October 2007. 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 many times to fix a problem with the plot.  Rowling was named Author of the Year in the 2000 British Book Awards. 

A wait of three years occurred 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 denied.  Rowling 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.

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 things she wrote in the entire series. 

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated US$15 billion,  and 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. 29 June 2007. Retrieved 29 June 2007.

The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television,  although it is reported that despite the huge uptake of the books, adolescent reading has continued to decline. 

Harry Potter films

In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels for a seven-figure sum.  A film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on 16 November 2001, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on 15 November 2002.[http://boxofficemojo.com/search/?q
harry%20potter&p.htm Harry Potter release dates]. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 25 October 2007. Both films were directed by Chris Columbus.  The film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was released on 4 June 2004, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by Mike Newell, and released on 18 November 2005. The film of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released on 11 July 2007. David Yates directed, and Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay, having taken over the position from Steve Kloves. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released on 15 July 2009.  David Yates directed again, and Kloves returned to write the script.  Warner Bros. filmed the final instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in two segments, with part one being released on 19 November 2010 and part two being released on 15 July 2011. Yates directed both films.  

Warner Bros. took considerable notice of Rowling's desires and thoughts when drafting her contract. One of her principal stipulations was the films be shot in Britain with an all-British cast,  which has been generally adhered to. Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the victor in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate US$18 million to the American charity Reading is Fundamental, as well as several community charity programs. 

The first four, sixth and seventh films were scripted by Steve Kloves; Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future books in the series.  She told Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters before they were revealed in the books.  Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) asked her if Harry died at any point in the series; Rowling answered him by saying, "You have a death scene", thereby not explicitly answering the question.  Director Steven Spielberg was approached to direct the first film, but dropped out. The press has repeatedly claimed that Rowling played a role in his departure, but Rowling stated that she had no say in who directed the films and would not have vetoed Spielberg.  Rowling's first choice for the director had been Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, but Warner Bros. wanted a family-friendly film and chose Columbus. 

Rowling had gained some creative control on the films, reviewing all the scripts  as well as acting as a producer on the final two-part instalment, Deathly Hallows. 

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 Newt Scamander, author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first film will be scripted by Rowling, and be set roughly 70 years before the events of the main series.  In 2014, it was announced that the series would consist of three films. 

Financial success

In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books,  the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world.  Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire.  The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK. In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list, claiming that her US$160 million in charitable donations and the high tax rate in the UK meant she was no longer a billionaire.  In February 2013 she was assessed as the 13th most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. 

In 2001, Rowling purchased a 19th-century estate house, Killiechassie House, 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,Boshoff, Alison. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id
402027 What does JK Rowling do with her money]. Daily Mail. 24 August 2006. Retrieved 20 October 2007. on a street with 24-hour security. 

Remarriage and family

On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her home, Killiechassie House, near Aberfeldy.  Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24 March 2003.  Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she ceased working on the novel to care for David in his early infancy. 

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.  , 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, Rowling's new 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 entitled The Casual Vacancy and would be released on 27 September 2012.  Rowling gave several interviews and made appearances to promote The Casual Vacancy, including at the London Southbank Centre,  the Cheltenham Literature Festival,  Charlie Rose  and the Lennoxlove Book Festival.  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

Over the years, Rowling often spoke of writing a crime novel. In 2007, during the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ian Rankin claimed that his wife spotted Rowling "scribbling away" at a detective novel in a café.  Rankin later retracted the story, claiming it was a joke,  but the rumour persisted, with a report in 2012 in The Guardian speculating that Rowling's next book would be a crime novel.  In an interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling claimed that she would much prefer to write any subsequent books under a pseudonym, but she conceded to Jeremy Paxman in 2003 that if she did, the press would probably "find out in seconds". 

In April 2013, Little Brown published The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported début novel of author Robert Galbraith, who 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 1500 copies in hardback (although the matter was not resolved ; later reports stated that this number is the number of copies that were printed for the first run, while the sales total was closer to 500) and received acclaim from other crime writers and critics —a Publishers Weekly review called the book a "stellar debut",  while the Library Journals 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 subsequently contacted Rowling's agent who confirmed it was Rowling's pseudonym. Within days of Rowling being revealed as the author, sales of the book rose by 4000 percent, and Little Brown printed another 140,000 copies to meet the increase in demand. , a signed copy of the first edition sold for US$4,453 (£2,950), while an unsold signed first-edition copy was being offered for $6,188 (£3,950). 

Rowling said that she had enjoyed working under a pseudonym.  On her Robert Galbraith website, Rowling explained that she took the name from one of her personal heroes, Robert Kennedy, and a childhood fantasy name she had invented for herself, Ella Galbraith. 

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 noted 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 [Gossage] 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 £1000 fine for breaching privacy rules. 

On 17 February 2014, Rowling announced that the second Cormoran Strike novel, named The Silkworm, would be released in June 2014. It sees Strike investigating the disappearance of a writer hated by many of his old friends for insulting them in his new novel. 

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."  On 24 April 2015, Rowling announced that work on the third book was completed. Titled Career of Evil, it was released on 20 October 2015 in the United States, and on 22 October 2015 in the United Kingdom. 

Subsequent Harry Potter publications

Rowling has said it is unlikely she will write any more books in the Harry Potter series.  In October 2007 she stated that her future work was unlikely to be in the fantasy genre.  On 1 October 2010, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling stated a new book on the saga might happen. 

In 2007, Rowling stated that she planned to write an encyclopaedia of Harry Potters wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes.  Any profits from such a book would be given to charity.  During a news conference at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre in 2007, Rowling, when asked how the encyclopaedia was coming along, said, "It's not coming along, and I haven't started writing it. I never said it was the next thing I'd do."  At the end of 2007, Rowling said that the encyclopaedia could take up to ten years to complete. 

In June 2011, Rowling announced that future Harry Potter projects, and all electronic downloads, would be concentrated in a new website, called Pottermore.  The site includes 18,000 words of information on characters, places and objects in the Harry Potter universe. 

In October 2015, Rowling announced via Pottermore, that a two part play she has 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's Potter's youngest son Albus after the epilogue of the Deathly Hallows.  On 28 October 2015, the first round of tickets went on sale and sold out in several hours. 

Philanthropy

In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget of £5.1 million to combat poverty and social inequality. The fund also gives to organisations that aid children, one parent families, and multiple sclerosis research.Memmott, Carol. [http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-07-25-jk-rowling_N.htm A fond look back at Harry]. USA Today. 25 July 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007. 

Anti-poverty and children's welfare

Rowling, once a single parent, is now president of the charity Gingerbread (originally One Parent Families), having become their first Ambassador in 2000.   Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families. 

In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three best-selling British authors – cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling – to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication.  Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts library. Since going on sale in March 2001, the books have raised £15.7 million for the fund. The £10.8 million they have raised outside the UK have been channelled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis.  In 2002 Rowling contributed a foreword to Magic, an anthology of fiction published by Bloomsbury Publishing, helping to raise money for the National Council for One Parent Families. 

In 2005, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level Group (now Lumos).  In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in mental institutions for children.  To further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for £1.95 million by on-line bookseller Amazon.com on 13 December 2007, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction.   Rowling gave away the remaining six copies to those who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books. In 2008, Rowling agreed to publish the book with the proceeds going to Lumos. On 1 June 2010 (International Children's Day), Lumos launched an annual initiative – Light a Birthday Candle for Lumos.  In November 2013, Rowling handed over all earnings from the sale of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, totalling nearly £19 million. 

In July 2012, Rowling was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London where she read a few lines from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan as part of a tribute to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. An inflatable representation of Lord Voldemort and other children's literary characters accompanied her reading. 

Multiple sclerosis

Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis, from which her mother suffered before her death in 1990. In 2006, Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, later named the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.  In 2010 she donated a further £10 million to the centre.  For reasons unknown, Scotland, Rowling's country of adoption, has the highest rate of multiple sclerosis in the world. In 2003, Rowling took part in a campaign to establish a national standard of care for MS sufferers. In April 2009, she announced that she was withdrawing her support for Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, citing her inability to resolve an ongoing feud between the organisation's northern and southern branches that had sapped morale and led to several resignations.

Other philanthropic work

In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers (Sebastian Faulks, Doris Lessing, Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Child, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh) to compose a short piece of their own choosing 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 that concerns Harry's father, James Potter, and godfather, Sirius Black, and takes place three years before Harry was born. The cards were collated and sold for charity in book form in August 2008. 

On 1 and 2 August 2006, she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières.  In May 2007, Rowling pledged a donation reported as over £250,000 to a reward fund started by the tabloid News of the World for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal.  Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the proceeds of which were donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory.  After her exposure as the true author of The Cuckoo's Calling led a massive increase in sales, Rowling announced she would donate all her royalties to the Army Benevolent Fund, claiming she had always intended to, but never expected the book to be a bestseller. 

Rowling is a supporter of The Shannon Trust, which runs the Toe by Toe Reading Plan and the Shannon Reading Plan in prisons across Britain, helping and giving tutoring to prisoners who cannot read. 

Influences

Rowling has named communist and civil rights activist Jessica Mitford as her "most influential writer" saying, "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".  Rowling has described Jane Austen as her favourite author,  calling Emma her favourite book in O magazine.  As a child, Rowling has said her early influences included The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, and Manxmouse by Paul Gallico. 

Views

Politics

In September 2008, on the eve of the Labour Party Conference, Rowling announced that she had 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.  Rowling is a close friend of Sarah Brown, wife of Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project for One Parent Families.

Rowling discussed the 2008 United States presidential election with the Spanish-language newspaper El País in February 2008, stating that the election would have a profound effect on the rest of the world. She also said that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be "extraordinary" in the White House. In the same interview, Rowling identified Robert F. Kennedy as her hero. 

In April 2010, Rowling published an article in The Times, in which she criticised 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." 

As a resident of Scotland, Rowling was eligible to vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, and campaigned for the  "No" vote. She donated £1 million to the Better Together anti-independence campaign (run by her former neighbour Alistair Darling), the largest donation it had received at the time. In a blog post, Rowling explained that an open letter from Scottish medical professionals raised problems with First Minister Alex Salmond's plans for a common research funding. Rowling compared some Scottish Nationalists with the Death Eaters, characters from Harry Potter who are scornful of those without pure blood. 

On 22 October 2015 a letter was published in The Guardian signed by Rowling (along with over 150 other figures from arts and politics) opposing the cultural boycott of Israel, and announcing the creation of a network for dialogue, called Culture for Coexistence.  Rowling later explained her position in more detail, saying that although she opposed most of Benjamin Netanyahu's actions she did not think the cultural boycott would bring about the removal of Israel's leader or help improve the situation in Israel and Palestine. 

Religion

Over the years, some religious people, particularly Christians, have decried Rowling's books for supposedly promoting witchcraft. Rowling identifies as a Christian, and attended a Church of Scotland congregation while writing Harry Potter. Her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.  She once said, "I believe in God, not magic."  Early on she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs they would be able to predict her plot line. 

In 2007, Rowling described having been brought up in the Church of England. She said she was the only one in her family who regularly went to church. As a student she became annoyed at the "smugness of religious people" and worshipped less often. Later, she started to attend again at a church in Edinburgh. 

In a 2006 interview with Tatler magazine, 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, she said that she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.

Press

Rowling has had a difficult relationship with the press. She admits to being "thin-skinned" and dislikes the fickle nature of reporting. Rowling disputes her reputation as a recluse who hates to be interviewed.Treneman, Ann. [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2003/0620-times-treneman.htm "I'm not writing for the money: It's for me and out of loyalty to fans."]. The Times. 20 June 2003. Retrieved 25 October 2007.

By 2011, Rowling had taken more than 50 actions against the press. In 2001, the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Rowling over a series of unauthorised photographs of her with her daughter on the beach in Mauritius published in OK! Magazine.  In 2007, Rowling's young son, David, assisted by Rowling and her husband, lost a court fight to ban publication of a photograph of him. The photo, taken by a photographer using a long-range lens, was subsequently published in a Sunday Express article featuring Rowling's family life and motherhood. The judgement was overturned in David's favour in May 2008. 

Rowling particularly dislikes the British tabloid the Daily Mail, which has conducted 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]."Lockerbie, Catherine.  11 July 2000. Retrieved 30 October 2007. , she was seeking damages from the Mail for libel over an article about her time as a single mother.  Some have speculated that Rowling's fraught relationship with the press was the inspiration behind the character Rita Skeeter, a gossipy celebrity journalist who first appears in Goblet of Fire, but Rowling noted in 2000 that the character predates her rise to fame. 

In September 2011, Rowling was named 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.  On 24 November 2011, Rowling gave evidence before the inquiry; although she was not suspected to have been the victim of phone hacking, her testimony included accounts of photographers camping on her doorstep, her fiancé being duped into giving his home address to a journalist masquerading as a tax official, her chasing a journalist a week after giving birth, a journalist leaving a note inside her then-five-year-old daughter's schoolbag, and an attempt by the Sun to "blackmail" her into a photo opportunity in exchange for the return of a stolen manuscript. Rowling claimed she had to leave her former home in Merchiston because of press intrusion. In November 2012, Rowling wrote an article for The Guardian in reaction to David Cameron's decision not to implement the full recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, saying she felt "duped and angry". 

In 2014, Rowling reaffirmed her support for "Hacked Off" and its campaign towards press self-regulation by co-signing with other British celebrities a declaration to "[safeguard] the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable." 

Legal disputes

Rowling, her publishers, and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions 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.[http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2846105.stm "Rowling seeks 'Grotter' ban"]. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/ BBC News], 13 March 2003. Retrieved 21 March 2006."

Another area of legal dispute involves a series of injunctions obtained by Rowling and her publishers to prohibit anyone from reading her books before their official release date.  The injunction drew fire from civil liberties and free speech campaigners and sparked debates over the "right to read".  

Awards and honours

Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Exeter,  the University of Aberdeen   and Harvard University, for whom she spoke at the 2008 commencement ceremony.  In 2009 Rowling was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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, 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 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
* 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

Publications

Children

Harry Potter series

# Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997)
# Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)
# Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)
# Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)
# Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)
# Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)
# 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)
* The Tales of Beedle the Bard (supplement to the Harry Potter series) (4 December 2008)
* Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (story concept) (play written by Jack Thorne) (31 July 2016)
* Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (film script) (19 November 2016)

Short stories

* Harry Potter prequel (July 2008)

Adults

* The Casual Vacancy (27 September 2012)

Cormoran Strike series

* The Cuckoo's Calling (as Robert Galbraith) (18 April 2013)
* The Silkworm (as Robert Galbraith) (19 June 2014)
* Career of Evil (as Robert Galbraith) (20 October 2015)

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). [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3656769/The-first-It-Girl.html "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). [http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination".] Harvard Magazine.
** J. K. Rowling, 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). [http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1893847_1894201,00.html "Gordon Brown – The 2009 Time 100"]. Time magazine.
* Rowling, J. K. (14 April 2010). [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece "The Single Mother's Manifesto".] The Times.
* Rowling, J. K. (30 November 2012). [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/30/jk-rowling-duped-angry-david-cameron-leveson "I feel duped and angry at David Cameron's reaction to Leveson".] The Guardian.
* Rowling, J. K. (17 December 2014). [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/17/jk-rowling-fairytale-orphanage-lumos Isn’t it time we left orphanages to fairytales?] The Guardian.
* Rowling, J. K. (guest editor) (28 April 2014). [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040yzlm "Woman's Hour Takeover".] Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4. Book of the Year

Seamus Heaney, Beowulf

Children's Book

Winner:
*J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Shortlist:
*Carol Ann Duffy, Meeting Midnight
*Michael Morpurgo, Kensuke's Kingdom
*Jacqueline Wilson, The Illustrated Mum

First Novel

Winner:
*Tim Lott, White City Blue
Shortlist:
*Suzanne Cleminshaw, The Great Ideas
*Andrew O'Hagan, Our Fathers
*Francine Stock, A Foreign Country

Novel

Winner:
*Rose Tremain, Music and Silence
Shortlist:
*Jim Crace, Being Dead
*Michael Frayn, Headlong
*Joanne Harris, Chocolat

Biography

Winner:
*David Cairns, Berlioz Volume Two: Servitude and Greatness
Shortlist:
*Nicholas Shakespeare, Bruce Chatwin
*Hilary Spurling, Matisse

Poetry

Winner:
*Seamus Heaney, Beowulf
Shortlist:
*Michael Hofmann, Approximately Nowhere
*Ted Hughes, Alcestis
*Don Paterson, The Eyes Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the life of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic, and subjugate all wizards and non-magical people (Muggles).

Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on 30 June 1997, the books have found immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide. They have attracted a wide adult audience as well as younger readers, and are often considered cornerstones of modern young adult literature.  The series has also had its share of criticism, including concern about the increasingly dark tone as the series progressed, as well as the often gruesome and graphic violence it depicts. , the books have sold more than 450 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history, and have been translated into seventy-three languages. The last four books consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, with the final instalment selling roughly eleven million copies in the United States within twenty-four hours of its release.

The series was originally published in English by two major publishers, Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States. A play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, based on a story by Rowling, premiered in London on 30 July 2016 at the Palace Theatre, and its script was published by Little, Brown as the eighth book in the series.  The original seven books were adapted into an eight-part film series by Warner Bros. Pictures, which has become the second highest-grossing film series of all time . The franchise has also generated much tie-in merchandise, making the Harry Potter brand worth in excess of $15 billion. 

A series of many genres, including fantasy, drama, coming of age and the British school story (which includes elements of mystery, thriller, adventure, horror and romance), the world of Harry Potter explores numerous themes and includes many cultural meanings and references. According to Rowling, the main theme is death.  Other major themes in the series include prejudice, corruption, and madness.

The success of the books and films has ensured that the Harry Potter franchise continues to expand, with numerous derivative works, a travelling exhibition that premièred in Chicago in 2009, a studio tour in London that opened in 2012, a digital platform on which J.K. Rowling updates the series with new information and insight, and a trilogy of spin-off films premièring in November 2016, among many other developments. Most recently, themed attractions, collectively known as The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, have been built at several Universal Parks & Resorts amusement parks around the world.

Plot

The central character in the series is Harry Potter, an English orphan who discovers, at the age of eleven, that he is a wizard, though he lives in the ordinary world of non-magical people known as Muggles.  The wizarding world exists parallel to the Muggle world, albeit hidden and in secrecy. His magical ability is inborn and children with such abilities are invited to attend exclusive magic schools that teach the necessary skills to succeed in the wizarding world. Harry becomes a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a wizarding academy in Scotland and it is here where most of the events in the series take place. As Harry develops through his adolescence, he learns to overcome the problems that face him: magical, social and emotional, including ordinary teenage challenges such as friendships, infatuation, romantic relationships, schoolwork and exams, anxiety, depression, stress, and the greater test of preparing himself for the confrontation, that lies ahead, in wizarding Britain's increasingly-violent second wizarding war. 

Each novel chronicles one year in Harry's life  during the period from 1991 to 1998.  The books also contain many flashbacks, which are frequently experienced by Harry viewing the memories of other characters in a device called a Pensieve.

The environment Rowling created is intimately connected to reality. The British magical community of the Harry Potter books is inspired by 1990s British culture, European folklore, classical mythology and alchemy, incorporating objects and wildlife such as magic wands, magic plants, potions, spells, flying broomsticks, centaurs and other magical creatures, the Deathly Hallows, and the Philosopher's Stone, beside others invented by Rowling. While the fantasy land of Narnia is an alternate universe and the Lord of the Rings Middle-earth a mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists in parallel within the real world and contains magical versions of the ordinary elements of everyday life, with the action mostly set in Scotland (Hogwarts), the West Country, Devon, London and Surrey in southeast England.  The world only accessible to wizards and magical beings comprises a fragmented collection of overlooked hidden streets, ancient pubs, lonely country manors and secluded castles invisible to the Muggle population. 

Early years

When the first novel of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (published in America and other countries as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) opens, it is apparent that some significant event has taken place in the wizarding world – an event so very remarkable, even the Muggles (non-magical people) notice signs of it. The full background to this event and Harry Potter's past is revealed gradually through the series. After the introductory chapter, the book leaps forward to a time shortly before Harry Potter's eleventh birthday, and it is at this point that his magical background begins to be revealed.

Harry's first contact with the wizarding world is through a half-giant, Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of grounds and keys at Hogwarts. Hagrid reveals some of Harry's history. Harry learns that, as a baby, he witnessed his parents' murder by the power-obsessed Dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who subsequently attempted to kill him as well.  For reasons not revealed until the fifth book, the spell with which Voldemort tried to kill Harry, rebounded. Harry survived with only a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead as a memento of the attack and Voldemort disappeared afterwards. As its inadvertent saviour from Voldemort's reign of terror, Harry has become a living legend in the wizarding world. However, at the orders of the venerable and well-known wizard Albus Dumbledore, the orphaned Harry had been placed in the home of his unpleasant Muggle relatives, the Dursleys, who kept him safe but treated him poorly, having him live in a cupboard and do chores while doting on their spoiled son Dudley. Petunia Dursley was jealous of her sister's magical abilities as a child, and later came to believe that all wizards were freaks. Therefore, the Dursleys hated wizards, so they hid Harry's true heritage from him, saying his parents died in a car crash in the hope that he would grow up "normal".

With Hagrid's help, Harry prepares for and undertakes his first year of study at Hogwarts. As Harry begins to explore the magical world, the reader is introduced to many of the primary locations used throughout the series. Harry meets most of the main characters and gains his two closest friends: Ron Weasley, a fun-loving member of an ancient, large, happy, but poor wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, a gifted and very hardworking witch of non-magical parentage. Harry also encounters the school's potions master, Severus Snape, who displays a conspicuously deep and abiding dislike for him, and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Quirinus Quirrell, who later turns out to be controlled by Lord Voldemort. The first book concludes with Harry's second confrontation with Lord Voldemort, who, in his quest for immortality, yearns to gain the power of the Philosopher's Stone, a substance that bestows everlasting life.

The series continues with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, describing Harry's second year at Hogwarts. He and his friends investigate a 50-year-old mystery that appears uncannily related to recent sinister events at the school. Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley, enrolls in her first year at Hogwarts, and finds an old notebook which turns out to be Voldemort's diary from his school days. Ginny becomes possessed by Voldemort through the diary and unconsciously opens the "Chamber of Secrets", unleashing an ancient monster, later revealed to be a basilisk, which begins attacking students at Hogwarts. The novel delves into the history of Hogwarts and a legend revolving around the Chamber that soon frightened everyone in the school. The book also introduces a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, a highly cheerful, self-conceited wizard who goes around as if he is the most wonderful person who ever existed, who knows absolutely every single thing there is to know about everything, who later turns out to be a fraud. Harry discovers that prejudice exists in the wizarding world, and learns that Voldemort's reign of terror was often directed at wizards who were descended from Muggles. Harry also learns that his ability to speak the snake language Parseltongue is rare and often associated with the Dark Arts. The novel ends after Harry saves Ginny's life by destroying the basilisk and the enchanted diary which has been the source of the problems.

The third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, follows Harry in his third year of magical education. It is the only book in the series which does not feature Lord Voldemort. Instead, Harry must deal with the knowledge that he has been targeted by Sirius Black, his father's best friend, and, according to the Wizarding World, an escaped mass murderer who assisted in the deaths of Harry's parents. As Harry struggles with his reaction to the dementors – dark creatures with the power to devour a human soul, which feed on despair – which are ostensibly protecting the school, he reaches out to Remus Lupin, a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher who is eventually revealed to be a werewolf. Lupin teaches Harry defensive measures which are well above the level of magic generally executed by people his age. Harry came to know that both Lupin and Black were best friends of his father and that Black was framed by their fourth friend, Peter Pettigrew.  In this book, a recurring theme throughout the series is emphasised – in every book there is a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, none of whom lasts more than one school year.

Voldemort returns

During Harry's fourth year of school (detailed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Harry is unwillingly entered as a participant in the Triwizard Tournament, a dangerous contest where three "champions", one from each participating school, must compete with each other in three tasks in order to win the triwizard cup. This year, Harry must compete against a witch and a wizard "champion" from visiting schools Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, as well as another Hogwarts student, causing Harry's friends to distance themselves from him.  Harry is guided through the tournament by their new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, who turns out to be an impostor – one of Voldemort's supporters named Barty Crouch, Jr. in disguise. The point at which the mystery is unravelled marks the series' shift from foreboding and uncertainty into open conflict. Voldemort's plan to have Crouch use the tournament to bring Harry to Voldemort succeeds. Although Harry manages to escape, Cedric Diggory, the other Hogwarts champion in the tournament, is killed by Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort re-enters the wizarding world with a physical body.

In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry must confront the newly resurfaced Voldemort. In response to Voldemort's reappearance, Dumbledore re-activates the Order of the Phoenix, a secret society which works from Sirius Black's dark family home to defeat Voldemort's minions and protect Voldemort's targets, especially Harry. Despite Harry's description of Voldemort's recent activities, the Ministry of Magic and many others in the magical world refuse to believe that Voldemort has returned.  In an attempt to counter and eventually discredit Dumbledore, who along with Harry is the most prominent voice in the wizarding world attempting to warn of Voldemort's return, the Ministry appoints Dolores Umbridge as the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts and the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She transforms the school into a dictatorial regime and refuses to allow the students to learn ways to defend themselves against dark magic.

With Ron and Hermione's suggestion, Harry forms "Dumbledore's Army", a secret study group aimed to teach his classmates the higher-level skills of Defence Against the Dark Arts that he has learned from his previous encounters with Dark wizards. An important prophecy concerning Harry and Lord Voldemort is revealed,  and Harry discovers that he and Voldemort have a painful connection, allowing Harry to view some of Voldemort's actions telepathically. In the novel's climax, Harry and his friends face off against Voldemort's Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic. Although the timely arrival of members of the Order of the Phoenix saves the children's lives, Sirius Black is killed in the conflict.

In the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Voldemort begins waging open warfare. Harry and his friends are relatively protected from that danger at Hogwarts. They are subject to all the difficulties of adolescence – Harry eventually begins dating Ginny, Ron establishes a strong infatuation with fellow Hogwarts student Lavender Brown, and Hermione starts to develop romantic feelings toward Ron. Near the beginning of the novel, lacking his own book, Harry is given an old potions textbook filled with many annotations and recommendations signed by a mysterious writer; "the Half-Blood Prince." This book is a source of scholastic success and great recognition from their new potions master, Horace Slughorn, but because of the potency of the spells that are written in it, becomes a source of concern. Harry takes private lessons with Dumbledore, who shows him various memories concerning the early life of Voldemort in a device called a Pensieve. These reveal that in order to preserve his life, Voldemort has split his soul into pieces, creating a series of horcruxes – evil enchanted items hidden in various locations, one of which was the diary destroyed in the second book.  Harry's snobbish adversary, Draco Malfoy, attempts to attack Dumbledore, and the book culminates in the killing of Dumbledore by Professor Snape, the titular Half-Blood Prince.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book in the series, begins directly after the events of the sixth book. Lord Voldemort has completed his ascension to power and gained control of the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron and Hermione drop out of school so that they can find and destroy Voldemort's remaining horcruxes. To ensure their own safety as well as that of their family and friends, they are forced to isolate themselves. As they search for the horcruxes, the trio learns details about Dumbledore's past, as well as Snape's true motives – he had worked on Dumbledore's behalf since the murder of Harry's mother. Snape is killed by Voldemort out of paranoia.

The book culminates in the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry, Ron and Hermione, in conjunction with members of the Order of the Phoenix and many of the teachers and students, defend Hogwarts from Voldemort, his Death Eaters, and various dangerous magical creatures. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin and Fred Weasley. After learning that he himself is a horcrux, Harry surrenders himself to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, who casts a killing curse (Avada Kedavra) at him. The defenders of Hogwarts do not surrender after learning of Harry's presumed death and continue to fight on. Harry awakens and faces Voldemort, whose horcruxes have all been destroyed. In the final battle, Voldemort's killing curse rebounds off Harry's defensive spell (Expelliarmus) killing Voldemort. Harry Potter marries and has children with Ginny Weasley and Hermione Granger marries and has children with Ronald Weasley.

An epilogue describes the lives of the surviving characters and the effects of Voldemort's death on the wizarding world. It also introduces the children of all the characters.

Supplementary works

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

 
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-part West End stage play, and the official eighth Harry Potter story.  It was written by Jack Thorne and based on a story by author J. K. Rowling, Thorne and director John Tiffany. The play opened on July 30, 2016 at the Palace Theatre, London, England. The script was released July 31, 2016.  The story is set nineteen years after the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and follows Harry Potter, now a Ministry of Magic employee, and his youngest son Albus Severus Potter.

The play's official synopsis was released on 23 October 2015: 

In-universe books

Rowling has expanded the Harry Potter universe with several short books produced for various charities.   In 2001, she released Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (a purported Hogwarts textbook) and Quidditch Through the Ages (a book Harry reads for fun). Proceeds from the sale of these two books benefited the charity Comic Relief.  In 2007, Rowling composed seven handwritten copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of fairy tales that is featured in the final novel, one of which was auctioned to raise money for the Children's High Level Group, a fund for mentally disabled children in poor countries. The book was published internationally on 4 December 2008.   Rowling also wrote an 800-word prequel in 2008 as part of a fundraiser organised by the bookseller Waterstones.  All three of these books contain extra information about the wizarding world not included in the original novels.

Pottermore website

In 2011, Rowling launched a new website announcing an upcoming project called Pottermore.  Pottermore opened to the general public on 14 April 2012.  Pottermore allows users to be sorted, be chosen by their wand and play various minigames. The main purpose of the website was to allow the user to journey though the story with access to content not revealed by JK Rowling previously, with over 18,000 words of additional content. 

In September 2015 the website was completely overhauled and most of the features were removed. The site has been redesigned and it mainly focuses on the information already available, rather than exploration. 

Structure and genre

The Harry Potter novels are mainly directed at a young adult audience as opposed to an audience of middle grade readers, children, or adults. The novels fall within the genre of fantasy literature, and qualify as a unique type of fantasy called "urban fantasy", "contemporary fantasy", or "low fantasy". They are mainly dramas, and maintain a fairly serious and dark tone throughout, though they do contain some notable instances of tragicomedy and black humour. In many respects, they are also examples of the bildungsroman, or coming of age novel,  and contain elements of mystery, adventure, horror, thriller, and romance. They can be considered part of the British children's boarding school genre, which includes Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, St. Clare's and the Naughtiest Girl series, and Frank Richards's Billy Bunter novels: the Harry Potter books are predominantly set in Hogwarts, a fictional British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic.  In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life", though they are, as many note, more contemporary, grittier, darker, and more mature than the typical boarding school novel, addressing serious themes of death, love, loss, prejudice, coming-of-age, and the loss of innocence in a 1990's British setting.  

The books are also, in the words of Stephen King, "shrewd mystery tales",  and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince).

In the middle of each book, Harry struggles with the problems he encounters, and dealing with them often involves the need to violate some school rules. If students are caught breaking rules, they are often disciplined by Hogwarts professors. However, the stories reach their climax in the summer term, near or just after final exams, when events escalate far beyond in-school squabbles and struggles, and Harry must confront either Voldemort or one of his followers, the Death Eaters, with the stakes a matter of life and death–a point underlined, as the series progresses, by one or more characters being killed in each of the final four books.  In the aftermath, he learns important lessons through exposition and discussions with head teacher and mentor Albus Dumbledore. In the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry and his friends spend most of their time away from Hogwarts, and only return there to face Voldemort at the dénouement. 

Themes

According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is death: "My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it."

Academics and journalists have developed many other interpretations of themes in the books, some more complex than others, and some including political subtexts. Themes such as normality, oppression, survival, and overcoming imposing odds have all been considered as prevalent throughout the series.  Similarly, the theme of making one's way through adolescence and "going over one's most harrowing ordeals – and thus coming to terms with them" has also been considered.  Rowling has stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that they also pass on a message to "question authority and... not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth". 

While the books could be said to comprise many other themes, such as power/abuse of power, violence and hatred, love, loss, prejudice, and free choice, they are, as Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot"; the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers. Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction Rowling has been purposeful in acknowledging her characters' sexualities and not leaving Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence". Rowling has also been praised for her nuanced depiction of the ways in which death and violence affects youth, and humanity as a whole. 

Rowling said that, to her, the moral significance of the tales seems "blindingly obvious". The key for her was the choice between what is right and what is easy, "because that … is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble." 

Origins

In 1990, Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry suddenly "fell into her head". Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:

Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1995 and the manuscript was sent off to several prospective agents.  The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury.

Publishing history

 
After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £2,500 advance for its publication.   Despite Rowling's statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when beginning to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted children aged nine to eleven.  On the eve of publishing, Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother's name as her second name because she has no middle name. 

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by Bloomsbury, the publisher of all Harry Potter books in the United Kingdom, on 30 June 1997.  It was released in the United States on 1 September 1998 by Scholastic – the American publisher of the books – as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,  after Rowling had received US$105,000 for the American rights – an unprecedented amount for a children's book by a then-unknown author.  Fearing that American readers would not associate the word "philosopher" with a magical theme (although the Philosopher's Stone is alchemy-related), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market.

The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.  It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003.  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on 16 July 2005, and it sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.   The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on 21 July 2007.  The book sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, breaking down to 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.

Translations

The series has been translated into 67 languages,   placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history.  The books have seen translations to diverse languages such as Korean , Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Welsh, Afrikaans, Albanian, Latvian and Vietnamese. The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek,  making it the longest published work in Ancient Greek since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.  The second volume has also been translated into Latin. 

Some of the translators hired to work on the books were well-known authors before their work on Harry Potter, such as Viktor Golyshev, who oversaw the Russian translation of the series' fifth book. The Turkish translation of books two to seven was undertaken by Sevin Okyay, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.  For reasons of secrecy, translation on a given book could only start after it had been released in English, leading to a lag of several months before the translations were available. This led to more and more copies of the English editions being sold to impatient fans in non-English speaking countries; for example, such was the clamour to read the fifth book that its English language edition became the first English-language book ever to top the best-seller list in France. 

The United States editions were adapted into American English to make them more understandable to a young American audience. 

Completion of the series

In December 2005, Rowling stated on her web site, "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series."  Updates then followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of 21 July 2007. The book itself was finished on 11 January 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: "J. K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11 January 2007." 

Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the final book (in fact, the epilogue) was completed "in something like 1990".   In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. On 28 March 2007, the cover art for the Bloomsbury Adult and Child versions and the Scholastic version were released.  

In September 2012, Rowling mentioned in an interview that she might go back to make a "director's cut" of two of the existing Harry Potter books. 

Cover art

For cover art, Bloomsbury chose painted art in a classic style of design, with the first cover a watercolour and pencil drawing by illustrator Thomas Taylor showing Harry boarding the Hogwarts Express, and a title in the font Cochin Bold.  The first releases of the successive books in the series followed in the same style but somewhat more realistic, illustrating scenes from the books. These covers were created by first Cliff Wright and then Jason Cockroft. 

Due to the appeal of the books among an adult audience, Bloomsbury commissioned a second line of editions in an 'adult' style. These initially used black-and-white photographic art for the covers showing objects from the books (including a very American Hogwarts Express) without depicting people, but later shifted to partial colourisation with a picture of Slytherin's locket on the cover of the final book.

International and later editions have been created by a range of designers, including Mary GrandPré for U.S. audiences and Mika Launis in Finland.  For a later American release, Kazu Kibuishi created covers in a somewhat anime-influenced style. 

Achievements

Cultural impact

Fans of the series were so eager for the latest instalment that bookstores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been highly successful in attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours.  

The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows became the fastest selling book in history, moving 11 million units in the first twenty-four hours of release.  The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to the release of two editions of each Harry Potter book, identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults.  Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposia.

The word Muggle has spread beyond its Harry Potter origins, becoming one of few pop culture words to land in the Oxford English Dictionary.  The Harry Potter fandom has embraced podcasts as a regular, often weekly, insight to the latest discussion in the fandom. Both MuggleCast and PotterCast have reached the top spot of iTunes podcast rankings and have been polled one of the top 50 favourite podcasts.

Some lessons identified in the series include diversity, acceptance, political tolerance, and equality. Surveys of over 1,000 college students in the United States show that those who read the books were significantly different than those who had not. Readers of the series were found to be more tolerant, more opposed to violence and torture, less authoritarian, and less cynical. Although we cannot know if this is a cause-and-effect relationship, there is a clear correlation, and it seems that Harry Potter's cultural impact may be stronger than just a fandom bond. 

At the University of Michigan in 2009, StarKid Productions performed an original musical parodying the Harry Potter series called A Very Potter Musical. The musical was awarded Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best Viral Videos of 2009. 

Commercial success

The popularity of the Harry Potter series has translated into substantial financial success for Rowling, her publishers, and other Harry Potter related license holders. This success has made Rowling the first and thus far only billionaire author.  The books have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to the popular film adaptations produced by Warner Bros., all of which have been highly successful in their own right.   The films have in turn spawned eight video games and have led to the licensing of more than 400 additional Harry Potter products . The Harry Potter brand has been estimated to be worth as much as $15 billion.

The great demand for Harry Potter books motivated the New York Times to create a separate best-seller list for children's literature in 2000, just before the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. By 24 June 2000, Rowling's novels had been on the list for 79 straight weeks; the first three novels were each on the hardcover best-seller list.  On 12 April 2007, Barnes & Noble declared that Deathly Hallows had broken its pre-order record, with more than 500,000 copies pre-ordered through its site.  For the release of Goblet of Fire, 9,000 FedEx trucks were used with no other purpose than to deliver the book. Together, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble pre-sold more than 700,000 copies of the book. In the United States, the book's initial printing run was 3.8 million copies. This record statistic was broken by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with 8.5 million, which was then shattered by Half-Blood Prince with 10.8 million copies. 6.9 million copies of Prince were sold in the U.S. within the first 24 hours of its release; in the United Kingdom more than two million copies were sold on the first day. The initial U.S. print run for Deathly Hallows was 12 million copies, and more than a million were pre-ordered through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Awards, honours, and recognition

The Harry Potter series has been recognised by a host of awards since the initial publication of Philosopher's Stone including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001),  three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997–1999),  two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001),  the inaugural Whitbread children's book of the year award (1999),  the WHSmith book of the year (2006),  among others. In 2000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, and in 2001, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won said award.  Honours include a commendation for the Carnegie Medal (1997),  a short listing for the Guardian Children's Award (1998), and numerous listings on the notable books, editors' Choices, and best books lists of the American Library Association, The New York Times, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly. 

A 2004 study found that books in the series were commonly read aloud in elementary schools in San Diego County, California.  Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed the series in its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". Three of the books placed among the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time, or children's novels, in a 2012 survey published by School Library Journal: Sorcerer's Stone ranked number three, Prisoner of Azkaban 12th, and Goblet of Fire 98th.

Reception

Literary criticism

Early in its history, Harry Potter received positive reviews. On publication, the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, attracted attention from the Scottish newspapers, such as The Scotsman, which said it had "all the makings of a classic",  and The Glasgow Herald, which called it "Magic stuff". Soon the English newspapers joined in, with more than one comparing it to Roald Dahl's work: The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl", a view echoed by The Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit".

By the time of the release of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books began to receive strong criticism from a number of literary scholars. Yale professor, literary scholar, and critic Harold Bloom raised criticisms of the books' literary merits, saying, "Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing."  A. S. Byatt authored a New York Times op-ed article calling Rowling's universe a "secondary secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature ... written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip". 

Michael Rosen, a novelist and poet, advocated the books were not suited for children, who would be unable to grasp the complex themes. Rosen also stated that "J. K. Rowling is more of an adult writer."  The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was negative – "the Potter saga was essentially patronising, conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain", and he speaks of "a pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style".  Ursula K. Le Guin said, "I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the 'incredible originality' of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a "school novel", good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited." 

By contrast, author Fay Weldon, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets hoped for", nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose".  The literary critic A. N. Wilson praised the Harry Potter series in The Times, stating: "There are not many writers who have JK's Dickensian ability to make us turn the pages, to weep – openly, with tears splashing – and a few pages later to laugh, at invariably good jokes ... We have lived through a decade in which we have followed the publication of the liveliest, funniest, scariest and most moving children's stories ever written".  Charles Taylor of Salon.com, who is primarily a movie critic,  took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point – a teeny one – about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art", he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers. Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the psychological wounds and social isolation each causes. Taylor also argued that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most light-hearted of the seven published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spur the series' success: the book opens with news of a double murder, for example. 

Stephen King called the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable", and declared "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humor" to be "remarkable". However, he wrote that despite the story being "a good one", he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle", the formulaic beginning of all seven books. King has also joked that "Rowling's never met an adverb she did not like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages". 

Social impact

Although Time magazine named Rowling as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year award, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom,  cultural comments on the series have been mixed. Washington Post book critic Ron Charles opined in July 2007 that the large numbers of adults reading the Potter series but few other books may represent a "bad case of cultural infantilism", and that the straightforward "good vs. evil" theme of the series is "childish". He also argued "through no fault of Rowling's", the cultural and marketing "hysteria" marked by the publication of the later books "trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide". 

Librarian Nancy Knapp pointed out the books' potential to improve literacy by motivating children to read much more than they otherwise would.  The seven-book series has a word count of 1,083,594 (US edition). Agreeing about the motivating effects, Diane Penrod also praised the books' blending of simple entertainment with "the qualities of highbrow literary fiction", but expressed concern about the distracting effect of the prolific merchandising that accompanies the book launches.  However, the assumption that Harry Potter books have increased literacy among young people is "largely a folk legend." Research by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has found no increase in reading among children coinciding with the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon, nor has the broader downward trend in reading among Americans been arrested during the rise in the popularity of the Harry Potter books.  The research also found that children who read Harry Potter books were not more likely to go on to read outside the fantasy and mystery genres. NEA chairman Dana Gioia said the series, "got millions of kids to read a long and reasonably complex series of books. The trouble is that one Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading."

Jennifer Conn used Snape's and Quidditch coach Madam Hooch's teaching methods as examples of what to avoid and what to emulate in clinical teaching,  and Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory". 

Jenny Sawyer wrote in Christian Science Monitor on 25 July 2007 that the books represent a "disturbing trend in commercial storytelling and Western society" in that stories "moral center [sic] have all but vanished from much of today's pop culture ... after 10 years, 4,195 pages, and over 375 million copies, J. K. Rowling's towering achievement lacks the cornerstone of almost all great children's literature: the hero's moral journey". Harry Potter, Sawyer argues, neither faces a "moral struggle" nor undergoes any ethical growth, and is thus "no guide in circumstances in which right and wrong are anything less than black and white".  In contrast Emily Griesinger described Harry's first passage through to Platform 9¾ as an application of faith and hope, and his encounter with the Sorting Hat as the first of many in which Harry is shaped by the choices he makes. She also noted the "deeper magic" by which the self-sacrifice of Harry's mother protects the boy throughout the series, and which the power-hungry Voldemort fails to understand. 

In an 8 November 2002 Slate article, Chris Suellentrop likened Potter to a "trust-fund kid whose success at school is largely attributable to the gifts his friends and relatives lavish upon him". Noting that in Rowling's fiction, magical ability potential is "something you are born to, not something you can achieve", Suellentrop wrote that Dumbledore's maxim that "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" is hypocritical, as "the school that Dumbledore runs values native gifts above all else".  In a 12 August 2007 New York Times review of Deathly Hallows, however, Christopher Hitchens praised Rowling for "unmooring" her "English school story" from literary precedents "bound up with dreams of wealth and class and snobbery", arguing that she had instead created "a world of youthful democracy and diversity". 

In 2010, coinciding with the release of the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  Part 1, a series of articles were written about Private Harry Potter of the British army.  This real-life Harry Potter was killed in the Arab Revolt near Hebron in 1939. His grave, located in the British cemetery in Ramla, Israel, began to receive curious visitors leading the Ramla Municipality to list it on their website.  The Daily Mail interviewed siblings of Harry Potter who stated, "We couldn't believe people visit his grave, but apparently they come from miles around to have their photo taken next to it." 

Controversies

The books have been the subject of a number of legal proceedings, stemming from various conflicts over copyright and trademark infringements. The popularity and high market value of the series has led Rowling, her publishers, and film distributor Warner Bros. to take legal measures to protect their copyright, which have included banning the sale of Harry Potter imitations, targeting the owners of websites over the "Harry Potter" domain name, and suing author Nancy Stouffer to counter her accusations that Rowling had plagiarised her work.    Various religious conservatives have claimed that the books promote witchcraft and religions such as Wicca and are therefore unsuitable for children,   while a number of critics have criticised the books for promoting various political agendas.  

The books also aroused controversies in the literary and publishing worlds. In 1997 to 1998, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won almost all the UK awards judged by children, but none of the children's book awards judged by adults,  and Sandra Beckett suggested the reason was intellectual snobbery towards books that were popular among children. In 1999, the winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year award children's division was entered for the first time on the shortlist for the main award, and one judge threatened to resign if Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was declared the overall winner; it finished second, very close behind the winner of the poetry prize, Seamus Heaney's translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. 

In 2000, shortly before the publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the previous three Harry Potter books topped the New York Times fiction best-seller list and a third of the entries were children's books. The newspaper created a new children's section covering children's books, including both fiction and non-fiction, and initially counting only hardback sales. The move was supported by publishers and booksellers. In 2004, The New York Times further split the children's list, which was still dominated by Harry Potter books into sections for series and individual books, and removed the Harry Potter books from the section for individual books.  The split in 2000 attracted condemnation, praise and some comments that presented both benefits and disadvantages of the move.  Time suggested that, on the same principle, Billboard should have created a separate "mop-tops" list in 1964 when the Beatles held the top five places in its list, and Nielsen should have created a separate game-show list when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? dominated the ratings. 

Adaptations

Films

In 1998, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1,982,900).   Rowling demanded the principal cast be kept strictly British, nonetheless allowing for the inclusion of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore, and for casting of French and Eastern European actors in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where characters from the book are specified as such.  After many directors including Steven Spielberg, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Demme, and Alan Parker were considered, Chris Columbus was appointed on 28 March 2000 as director for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States), with Warner Bros. citing his work on other family films such as Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire and proven experience with directing children as influences for their decision.

After extensive casting, filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London itself, with production ending in July 2001.  Philosopher's Stone was released on 14 November 2001. Just three days after the film's release, production for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, also directed by Columbus, began. Filming was completed in summer 2002, with the film being released on 15 November 2002.  Daniel Radcliffe portrayed Harry Potter, doing so for all succeeding films in the franchise.

Columbus declined to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, only acting as producer. Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón took over the job, and after shooting in 2003, the film was released on 4 June 2004. Due to the fourth film beginning its production before the third's release, Mike Newell was chosen as the director for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, released on 18 November 2005.  Newell became the first British director of the series, with television director David Yates following suit after he was chosen to helm Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Production began in January 2006 and the film was released the following year in July 2007.  After executives were "really delighted" with his work on the film, Yates was selected to direct Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was released on 15 July 2009.   

In March 2008, Warner Bros. President and COO Alan F. Horn announced that the final instalment in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, would be released in two cinematic parts: Part 1 on 19 November 2010 and Part 2 on 15 July 2011. Production of both parts started in February 2009, with the final day of principal photography taking place on 12 June 2010.  

Rowling had creative control on the film series, observing the filmmaking process of Philosopher's Stone and serving as producer on the two-part Deathly Hallows, alongside David Heyman and David Barron.  The Harry Potter films have been top-rank box office hits, with all eight releases on the list of highest-grossing films worldwide. Philosopher's Stone was the highest-grossing Harry Potter film up until the release of the final instalment of the series, Deathly Hallows, while Prisoner of Azkaban grossed the least.  As well as being a financial success, the film series has also been a success among film critics.  

Opinions of the films are generally divided among fans, with one group preferring the more faithful approach of the first two films, and another group preferring the more stylised character-driven approach of the later films.  Rowling has been constantly supportive of all the films and evaluated Deathly Hallows as her "favourite one" in the series.  She wrote on her website of the changes in the book-to-film transition, "It is simply impossible to incorporate every one of my storylines into a film that has to be kept under four hours long. Obviously films have restrictions novels do not have, constraints of time and budget; I can create dazzling effects relying on nothing but the interaction of my own and my readers' imaginations". 

At the 64th British Academy Film Awards in February 2011, Rowling was joined by producers David Heyman and David Barron along with directors David Yates, Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell in collecting the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema on behalf of all the films in the series. Actors Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who play main characters Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, were also in attendance.  

Spin-off prequels

A new trilogy of films, beginning with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, will take place before the main series. The films will be released in November 2016, 2018 and 2020 respectively. Rowling wrote the screenplay for the first instalment, marking her first foray into screenwriting.

Games

There are thirteen Harry Potter video games, eight of which correspond with the films and books, and five other spin-offs. The film/book based games are produced by Electronic Arts, as was Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup, with the game version of the first entry in the series, Philosopher's Stone, being released in November 2001. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone went on to become one of the best selling PlayStation games ever.  The video games are released to coincide with the films, containing scenery and details from the films as well as the tone and spirit of the books. Objectives usually occur in and around Hogwarts, along with various other magical areas. The story and design of the games follows the selected film's characterisation and plot; EA worked closely with Warner Brothers to include scenes from the films. The last game in the series, Deathly Hallows, was split with Part 1 released in November 2010 and Part 2 debuting on consoles in July 2011. The two-part game forms the first entry to convey an intense theme of action and violence, with the gameplay revolving around a third-person shooter style format.   The spin-off games, Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 and Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 are developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The spin-off games Book of Spells and Book of Potions are developed by SCE London Studio and utilise the Wonderbook; an augmented reality book which is designed to be used in conjunction with the PlayStation Move and PlayStation Eye. 

A number of other non-interactive media games have been released; board games such as Cluedo Harry Potter Edition, Scene It? Harry Potter and Lego Harry Potter models, which are influenced by the themes of both the novels and films.

Audiobooks

All seven Harry Potter books have been released in unabridged audiobook versions, with Stephen Fry reading the UK editions, and Jim Dale voicing the series for the American editions.  

Stage production

On 20 December 2013, J. K. Rowling announced that she was working on a Harry Potter–based play for which she would be one of the producers. British theatre producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender will be the co-producers.  

On 26 June 2015, on the anniversary of the debut of the first book, Rowling revealed via Twitter that the Harry Potter stage play would be called Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. The Production is expected to open in the summer of 2016 at London's Palace Theatre, London.  The first four months of tickets for the June–September performances were sold out within several hours upon release.  On 10 February 2016, it was announced via the Pottermore website, that the script would be released in book form, the day after the play's world premiere, making this the 8th book in the series, with events set nineteen years after the closing chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  

Attractions

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

After the success of the films and books, Universal and Warner Brothers announced they would create The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new Harry Potter-themed expansion to the Islands of Adventure theme park at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. The land officially opened to the public on 18 June 2010.  It includes a re-creation of Hogsmeade and several rides. The flagship attraction is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which exists within a re-creation of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Other rides include Dragon Challenge, a pair of inverted roller coasters, and Flight of the Hippogriff, a family roller coaster.

Four years later, on 8 July 2014, Universal opened a Harry Potter-themed area at the Universal Studios Florida theme park. It includes a re-creation of Diagon Alley and connecting alleys and a small section of Muggle London. The flagship attraction is Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts roller coaster ride. Universal also added a completely functioning recreation of the Hogwarts Express connecting Kings Cross Station at Universal Studios Florida to the Hogsmeade station at Islands of Adventure. Both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley contain many shops and restaurants from the book series, including Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and The Leaky Cauldron.

On 15 July 2014, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka, Japan. It includes the village of Hogsmeade, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, and Flight of the Hippogriff roller coaster.

There is also The Wizarding World of Harry Potter under construction at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park near Los Angeles, California, with a planned opening in April 2016. 

United Kingdom

In March 2011, Warner Bros. announced plans to build a tourist attraction in the United Kingdom to showcase the Harry Potter film series. Warner Bros. Studio Tour London is a behind-the-scenes walking tour featuring authentic sets, costumes and props from the film series. The attraction is located at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, where all eight of the Harry Potter films were made. Warner Bros. constructed two new sound stages to house and showcase the famous sets from each of the British-made productions, following a £100 million investment.  It opened to the public in March 2012.
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