To the women who created it all…
In 1990 Joanne “Jo” Rowling was traveling by train from Manchester to London, it was then that she conceived the idea of one of the most beloved series of all time. Jo told the Boston Guide “I really don’t know where the idea came from. It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head.”
However, December of that same year Jo’s mother passed away from multiple sclerosis. This death weighed heavily on Jo and introduced more in depth writing of Harry’s loss in the first book. Rowling then moved to Portugal where she married Jorge Arantes and on July 27, 1993 her daughter Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes was born. After being separated from her husband Jo was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. It was this tragic time in her life that brought her the ideas of Dementors, creatures who suck all the happiness out of a person making you feel as though they will never be cheerful again. Jo felt as though she had reached rock bottom, but the good thing about reaching the bottom is that there is no place else to go but up. Jo stated, “I was alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea.”
In 1995 Jo finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The book was then submitted to twelve publishing houses, all at which turned it down. One year later Barry Cunningham gave Jo the good news that a small London publishing house took on her book. The decision was made based on Alice Newton, eight year old daughter of Bloombury’s chairman who they let read the first chapter to see her reaction. Alice immediately demanded that she receive the second chapter just after finishing the first. Cunningham advised Jo to search for a day job being that there was little chance of making money in children’s books.
The publishers also feared that the target audience of young boys may not like the idea of a women author. It was then demanded that Jo use two initials rather then Joanne. Being she did not have a middle name Jo chose the second initial K after her grandmother Kathleen.
The Harry Potter Time Line:
- June 1997 – Bloomsbury published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
- 5 Months later – Philosopher’s Stone won it’s first award a Nestle Smarties Book Prize
- February 1998 – Philosopher’s Stone won British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year
- July 1998 – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published – again winning the Nestle Smarties Book Prize
- October 1998 – Scholastic published Philosopher’s Stone in U.S. under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
- December 1999 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban won Nestle Smarties Book Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running
- January 2000 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban won Whitbread Children’s of the Year Award
- July 8, 2000 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire released simultaneously in the U.K. as well as the U.S. breaking the sales record in both countries
- J.K. Rowling was names Author of the Year in 2000 by the British Book Awards
- Three years later Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released
- July 16, 2005 – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was released, again breaking sales records
- 2006 – Won the Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards
- December 21, 2006 – Title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released
- January 11, 2007 – Jo finished writing the final book in a hotel room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh
- July 21, 2007 – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released breaking its predecessor’s record as the fastest selling book of all time. The book sold eleven million copies the first day in the U.K. and U.S.
This 4,195 page series has been translated in 65 different languages and known to be the fastest selling books in history. We owe a very special thank you to Joanne Rowling for creating a world that has touched the hearts of thousands of people with one of the most beloved series ever written.
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