Liceul Technologic “Domokos Kázmér”Sovata

Filiera: TeoreticăProfil: Real

Specializare: Matematică-Informatică Intensiv Engleză

Atestat la limba Engleză

Profesor îndrumător: Autor: Almăşan Cristina Kacsó Melánia

XII.B.

2013

Liceul Technologic “Domokos Kázmér”Sovata

Filiera: TeoreticăProfil: Real

Specializare: Matematică-Informatică Intensiv Engleză

2013

Table of contents:

Introduction…………………………………………………………………4

Chapter I. J. K. Rowling…………………………………………………5

1.1. Name………………………………………………………………………………….5

Chapter II. Biography……………………………………………………6

2.1. Birth and family………………………………………………………………………6

2.2. Childhood and education……………………………………………………………6

2.3. Rowling's childhood home, Church Cottage, Tutshill. ………………………………6

2.4. Inspiration and mother's death………………………………………………………8

2.5. Rowling described the conception of Harry Potter on her website: …………………8

Chapter III. Marriage, divorce and single parenthood……………………9

Chapter IV. Harry Potter…………………………………………………10

4.1. Harry Potter films…………………………………………………………………13

4.2. Success………………………………………………………………………………14

Chapter V. Remarriage and family and personal life……………………15

5.1. Change of agency and The Casual Vacancy………………………………………15

Chapter VI. Future of Harry Potter………………………………………16

Chapter VII. Philanthropy………………………………………………17

7.1. Anti-poverty and children's welfare…………………………………………………17

7.2. Multiple sclerosis……………………………………………………………………18

Chapter VIII. Awards and honors………………………………………19

8.1. Harry Potter series…………………………………………………………………20

Conclusion……………………………………………………………..21

3

Introduction

I chose this topic because I liked very much the Harry Potter film series. By doing

my thesis I get lot new information which I did not about Joanne Rowling nicked J. K.

Rowling.

From my thesis the reader can find out more about her personal life, her

childhood and her primary inspiration sources.

I continued with presenting the Harry Potter series, the life of a young witch boy

with the same name. This is considered the biggest success of J.K. Rowling, and this was

to tool to the way up. By creating a new world, the world of Harry’s, and by writing

inside some part of her life, Joanne realized one of the greatest book series of our time.

4

Chapter I. J. K. Rowling

Joanne "Jo" Rowling (born 31 July 1965), pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British

novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter 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 has become the highest-grossing film series in history. Rowling had

overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a

producer on the final installment.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual

secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter

series on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. The seven-year period that

followed entailed the death of her mother, divorce from her first husband and poverty

until Rowling finished the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's

Stone (1997). Rowling subsequently published 6 sequels—the last, Harry Potter and the

Deathly Hallows (2007)—as well as 3 supplements to the series. In 2012, Rowling parted

with her agency and resumed writing in the form of a tragicomedy novel aimed at adult

readership, entitled The Casual Vacancy. Rowling has said she is currently working on

two books—one aimed for adults, the other for children younger than the Harry Potter

audience, and she expects the latter to be published first.

1.1. Name

Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", pronounced like rolling,

her name when her first Harry Potter book was published 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 demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name.

As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her

paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself "Jo" and has said,

"No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following

her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting

personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of

5

Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared

that people pronounced her name incorrectly.

Chapter II. Biography

2.1. Birth and family

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and

Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles

(16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her

parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in

1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald

Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather,

Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the

village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.

2.2. 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.

2.3. Rowling's childhood home, Church Cottage, Tutshill.

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then

read to her sister. She recalls that "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she

fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly

the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called

Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called

Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire

6

village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great

aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a

questionable kind", gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons

and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her

books.

Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I

wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult

homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no

longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School

and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department.

Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter

character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm

not particularly proud of." 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 the one in her books. "Ron Weasley

[Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."

Of her musical tastes of the time, she said "My favourite group in the world is The

Smiths. And when I was going through a punky phase, it was The Clash." Rowling

studied A Levels in English, French and German, achieving two A's 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 BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter, which she

says was a "bit of a shock" as she "was expecting to be amongst lots of similar people –

thinking radical thoughts." Once she made friends with "some like-minded people" she

says she began to enjoy herself. Of her time at Exeter, Martin Sorrell, then a professor of

French at the university, recalled "a quietly competent student, with a denim jacket and

dark hair, who, in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary."

Although her own memory is of "doing no work whatsoever" and instead she "wore

heavy eyeliner, listened 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

7

a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. In 1998, 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.

2.4. Inspiration and mother's death

After working at Amnesty International in London, Rowling and her then

boyfriend decided to move to Manchester. 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. She told The Boston Globe that "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."

2.5. Rowling described the conception of Harry Potter on her website:

I was travelling back to London on my own on a crowded train, and the idea for

Harry Potter simply fell into my head. I had been writing almost continuously since the

age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense

frustration, I didn't have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could

borrow one… I did not have a functioning pen with me, but I do think that this was

probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while 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. Perhaps, if I had slowed

down the ideas to capture them on paper, I might have stifled some of them (although

sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had

forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen). I began to write 'Philosopher's

Stone' that very evening, although those first few pages bear no resemblance to anything

in the finished book.

When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.

In December of that year, Rowling's mother died, after ten years suffering from multiple

sclerosis. Rowling commented, "I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother

died. I had never told her about Harry Potter." Rowling said this death heavily affected

8

her writing and that she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book,

because she knew about how it felt.

Chapter III. Marriage, divorce and single parenthood

An advert in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto in Portugal to teach

English as a foreign language. She taught at night, and began writing in the day whilst

listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. While there she met Portuguese television

journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar, after sharing a mutual 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. They separated on 17 November 1993, 13 months and one day after their

marriage. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her

marriage, although the full extent is unknown. In an interview with The Daily Express,

Arantes said on their final night together he had dragged her out of their home at five in

the morning and slapped her hard. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved

to be near Rowling's sister in Edinburgh, Scotland, with three chapters of Harry Potter in

her suitcase.

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as "the biggest

failure I knew." Her marriage had failed, she was jobless with a dependent child, but she

described her failure as liberating:

Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I

was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the

only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never

have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set

free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a

daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom

became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

9

Chapter IV. Harry Potter

"The Elephant House" – one of the cafés in Edinburgh in which Rowling wrote

the first Harry Potter novel.

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 apparently 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 prestigious 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 $105,000. In Rowling's own words, 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 claims 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. Her neighbors were initially unaware that she was the author of the Harry

Potter series, although according to biographer Connie Ann Kirk, "most treated her with

respect and gave her the distance they would want themselves".

10

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. Some

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. In the US, the book sold three

million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted

that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing

Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot ... I've had some of my blackest

moments with this book ... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it

can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." 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 fervently denied.

Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have

been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy

toward the end."

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. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but

before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making

absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening

chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the

British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's

11

Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. 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 revealed on 21 December

2006 to be 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. She wrote the last chapter of the book

"in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year

period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a

documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K

Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement

flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the

first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around

completely."

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling gave credit to her mother for the

success of the series saying that "the books are what they are because she died...because I

loved her and she died."

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated $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.

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.

12

4.1. 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. Both films were directed by Chris Columbus. 4 June 2004 saw the

release of the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, directed by

Alfonso Cuarón. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by

another new director, 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. In March 2008,

Warner Bros. announced that the final instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the

Deathly Hallows, would be filmed in two segments, with part one being released in

November 2010 and part two being released in July 2011. Yates would again return to

direct 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, with the majority of the

actors selected from Britain. In an unprecedented move, Rowling also demanded that

Coca-Cola, the victor in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate $18

million to the American charity Reading is Fundamental, as well as a number of

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 has said that she told him more about the later books than

anybody else (prior to their release), but not everything. She also 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

13

was approached to helm the first film, but dropped out. The press has repeatedly claimed

that Rowling played a role in his departure, but Rowling stated that she has no say in who

directs the films and would not have vetoed Spielberg if she had. Rowling's first choice

for the director had been Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, as she is a fan of his

work, but Warner Bros. wanted a more 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.

On her website, Rowling revealed that she was considered to have a cameo in the

first film as Lily Potter in the Mirror of Erised scene. Rowling, however, turned down the

role, stating that she was not cut out to be an actor and, "would have messed it up

somehow". The role ultimately went to Geraldine Somerville.

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.

4.2. 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. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling

the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list,

claiming that her over $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, Scotland. Rowling also

owns a £4.5 million ($7 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, on a street

with 24-hour security. Rowling owned a house in the Merchiston area of Edinburgh

between 1999 and 2012, selling the eight-bedroomed house for over £2.25 million. She

currently lives in another property in Barnton, on the outskirts of the city.

14

Chapter V. Remarriage and family and personal life

On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June

1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. This was a second

marriage for both Rowling and Murray, as Murray had previously been married to Fiona

Duncan in 1996. Murray and Duncan separated in 1999 and divorced in mid-2001. It was

two years after her remarriage, in December 2003, that Rowling became estranged from

her father Peter Rowling, with whom she already claimed to have a difficult relationship.

In a 2012 interview with The New Yorker, stating they were still estranged, Rowling said

it stemmed from her father's decision in 2003 to sell personalised copies of the Harry

Potter series at Sotheby's auction house, including a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet

of Fire inscribed with a Father's Day message "lots of love from your first-born" that sold

for £50,000.

Rowling's and Murray's son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24

March 2003. Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

she took a break from working on the novel to care for him in his early infancy.

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.

5.1. Change of agency and 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, commenting on the move

Rowling said, "Neil and Christopher reached a point where it wasn’t working, the two of

them together, and I had to make a decision. It was very, very difficult."

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 noted the differences between her new project and the Potter series,

saying "Although I've enjoyed writing it just as much, my next novel will be very

different from the Harry Potter series." On 12 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

15

Casual Vacancy, including at the London Southbank Centre, the Cheltenham Literature

Festival, The Charlie Rose Show 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 Casual Vacancy will become a

BBC television drama series expected to air in 2014 on BBC One. The series will be

produced by Rowling's agent, Neil Blair, through his independent production company

and with Rick Senat serving as executive producer. Rowling is collaborating closely on

the adaptation. The number and length of episodes will be decided once the adaptation

process has begun.

Chapter VI. Future of Harry Potter

As regards the possibility of an eighth Harry Potter book, she has said, "I can't say

I'll never write another book about that world just because I think, what do I know, in ten

years' time I might want to return to it but I think it's unlikely." In October 2007 she

stated that her future work was unlikely to be in the fantasy genre, explaining, "I think

probably I've done my fantasy ... it would be incredibly difficult to go out and create

another world that didn't in some way overlap with Harry's or maybe borrow a little too

much from Harry." However, 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 plans to write an encyclopedia of Harry Potter's

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 encyclopedia 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, stating "There is no point in doing it unless it is amazing. The last

thing I want to do is to rush something out".

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 additional information on characters, places and objects in

the Harry Potter universe. On 13 April 2012, following the website's release, Rowling

16

confirmed that she had started work on the encyclopedia and would donate all royalties to

charity as she had previously planned. In May 2012, however, she said, "I have been

enjoying sharing information about Harry’s world on Pottermore for free, and don’t have

any firm plans to publish it in book form."

Chapter VII. 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.

Rowling said, "I think you have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more

than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently."

7.1. Anti-poverty and children's welfare

Rowling, once a single parent herself, is now president of the charity Gingerbread

(originally One Parent Families), having already 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 ($30

million) for the fund. The £10.8 million ($20 million) they have raised outside the UK

have been channelled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young

People in Crisis.

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

17

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

commented, "This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help. It means

Christmas has come early to me." 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 the Children's High Level Group. On 1 June

2010 (International Children's Day), Lumos launched an annual initiative – Light a

Birthday Candle for Lumos. To support the campaign on 1 June 2011, JK Rowling gave

an interview to Redonline.co.uk

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 Children's Hospital. An inflatable representation of Lord

Voldemort and other children's literary characters accompanied her reading.

7.2. 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.

18

Chapter VIII. Awards and honors

Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the

University of 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 awarded the 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: Order of the British Empire, Officer (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

2008: British Book Awards, Outstanding Achievement

2010: Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, inaugural award winner

19

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

Chapter IX. Publications

8.1. 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)

Other children's books

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)

20

Conclusion

To sum up things I would like to mention that I like her style, not just writing best

seller book series, and enjoy the fortune of money we earned from that but she tries to

help where se can. This kind of helping spirit motivates others, and even I feel motivated

to do once charity if I will have the occasion.

Furthermore I gain more information about her biography, and of course about

one of my favorite book the Harry Potter.

21