Biography

Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born in Chipping Sodbury on July 31, 1965. A single, Rowling became an international literary sensation in 1999, when the first three installments of her Harry Potter book series took over the top three slots of the New York Times best-seller list after earning similar success in her native United Kingdom. The phenomenal response to Rowling's books culminated In July 2000, the phenominal response to her books culminated when the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, became the fastest-selling book ever in history.

A graduate of Exeter University, she moved to Portugal in 1990 to teach English over there. There, she met and soon married a Portuguese journalist.  Her daughter, Jessica, was born in 1993. She moved to Edinburgh with her daughter so that she could live near her younger sister, Di, after her marriage had ended in divorce.  Rowling worked on a book while struggling to support her daughter Jessica and herself on welfare. The idea for the book had occurred to her while she was traveling on a train from Manchester to London in 1990.  She finally sold the book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the word "Philosopher" was changed to "Sorcerer" for its publication in America), after a number of rejections, for the equivalent of about $4000.

The first three Harry Potter books: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban earned approximately $480 million in three years by the summer of 2000, with over 35 million copies in print in 35 languages. In July 2000, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire saw a first printing of 5.3 million copies and advance orders of over 1.8 million. Now one of Britain's richest women, Rowling plans a total of seven books in her series, each chronicling a year in the life of Harry Potter, a young wizard, and his motley band of cohorts at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The fifth book came in the summer of 2003 on June 21st which was about 3 years after the fourth book had come.

The movie of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, directed by Chris Columbus, was released  November 16th, 2001. In its opening weekend in the U.S., the film debuted on a record 8,200 screens and smashed the previous box office record, earning an estimated $93.5 million ($20 million more than the previous recordholder, 1999's The Lost World: Jurassic Park). It ended the year as the top-grossing movie of 2001. The second film in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, opened  on November 15th, 2002 and had the third best opening weekend in box office history.

Rowling married the anesthetist Dr. Neil Murray at the couple's home in Scotland in late December 2001. Her second child and first son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on March 24th, 2003, at the new Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. To care for their son, Rowling publicly planned less appearances and book signigns for the fifth book. Work on the sixth Harry Potter book of the series, that of which we do not yet know the title, is said to have already started, but will not be expected until 2005.  We all owe alot to Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

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