The idea of Harry Potter

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

"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. [...] I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me."

After this she worked hard on the plots and other characters of the story.In 1996, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was completed and the manuscript was sent off to prospective agents. Many publishers rejected it as they thought it was too childish.The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury. After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £3,000 advance for the publication of Philosopher's Stone.

The Author- J K Rowling

Rowling was born at Yate, South Gloucestershire, England, 19 km northeast of Bristol on 31 July 1965. Her sister Dianne (Di) was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old.The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four where she attended St Michael's Primary School, later moving to Tutshill, near Chepstow, South Wales at the age of nine. As a child, Rowling enjoyed writing stories about fantasies, which she often read to her sister. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College. Rowling was good with languages, but did not excel at sports and mathematics. There are numerous references to Welsh places, things, and people in Harry Potter, which could be attributed to her time in Chepstow.

After studying French and Classics at the University of Exeter, with a year of study in Paris, she moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.

In December 1990, Rowling’s mother succumbed to a 10-year-long battle with the condition multiple sclerosis. Rowling commented, “I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter.”

Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there, she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes on 16 October 1992. They had one child, Jessica, who was named after Rowling’s heroine, Jessica Mitford. They divorced in 1993 after a fight in which Jorge threw her out of the house.

In December 1994, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near Rowling’s sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. Unemployed and living on state benefits, she completed her first novel. She did her work in numerous different cafés (e.g. Nicolson's Cafe and Elephant House Café), whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep.

In 1996, one year after finishing the book, Bloomsbury bought Jo's first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.'The moment I found out that Harry would be published was one of the best of my life,’ says JKR. A few months after 'Harry' was accepted for publication in Britain, an American publisher bought the rights for enough money to enable Jo to give up teaching and write full time - her life's ambition!Her first book won her the following accolades

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• Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1997 Gold Medal 9-11 years
• FCBG Children’s Book Award 1997 Overall winner and Longer Novel Category Birmingham Cable Children’s Book Award 1997
• Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year 1998
• British Book Awards 1997 Children’s Book of the Year
• Sheffield Children’s Book Award 1998
• Whitaker's Platinum Book Award 2001

After the fist book she has written 6 more books of Harry potter of which the 7th book is due to be released on 21 July 2007.