J.K. Rowling is one of the most successful authors in the history of the world.
She's lived a fascinating life, rising from struggling single mother to multi-millionaire philanthropist at the head of an entertainment empire.
She and the "Harry Potter" franchise will always be inexorably linked. She even gave the character her birthday: July 31.
But beyond her wizarding universe, Rowling is a woman with a unique taste in books and a difficult past.
Here are 19 things you didn't know about her.
Her parents never graduated from college.
While Rowling received her degree in classics and French from the University of Exeter, her parents never completed college degrees. Her father worked as an aircraft engineer at Rolls Royce, and her mother was a high school science technician.
Her mother died when Rowling was 25.
Rowling's mother, Anne Rowling, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when her daughter was a teenager. She died from complications related to the disease before "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was ever published.
"I came from a difficult family. My mother was very ill, and it wasn’t the easiest," she told the New Yorker.
Later in life, Rowling gave $16 million to found the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at the University of Edinburgh, which studies the disease.
She named her daughter after one of her favorite authors.
Jessica Rowling is named after Jessica Mitford, a British writer and activist. J.K. Rowling is a major champion of the writer, who died in 1996. She wrote a review of her collected letters for The Telegraph in 2006. And her journalistic memoir, "Hons and Rebels," was given to her by her aunt when she was 14 and became one of her favorite books.
"I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics — she was a self-taught socialist — throughout her life," Rowling told The Scotsman. "I think I've read everything she wrote."
She made sure hamburgers, pizza, and Coca-Cola wouldn't make it into The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
When The Wizarding World of Harry Potter finally opened in Universal Studios, Orlando in 2010, it had been in the works for years. Rowling had an enormous amount of creative control. Universal wanted to provide typical theme park food — hamburgers, pizza, etc. — but Rowling insisted on an immersive experience, and had them serve butterbeer, shepherd’s pie, and fish and chips instead, according to Bloomberg.
She and her literary agent had a tense breakup.
When an artist becomes huge, there are always hard discussions about the people they leave behind. Christopher Little was a relatively low-profile publishing agent when he decided to represent "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in 1995. The novel was rejected by a dozen publishers before Bloomsbury accepted it. The book, of course, became a hit and made Rowling and Little millions of dollars over the years. He reportedly made 15% of Rowling's gross earnings from the British book market and 20% of her merchandising revenue, according to The Independent. It was "the most commercially successful relationship in literary history," according to The Telegraph.
But around 2011, Rowling defected to another literary agency, founded by Little's former business partner Neil Blair. Rowling also used Pottermore to distribute her ebooks, further taking Little out of the equation.
Little considered pursuing legal action against Rowling. In the end, she paid him off, according to The Telegraph, and Rowling ended up with Neil Blair representing her.
She and her father stopped speaking to each other in 2003.
Her relationship with her father, Peter Rowling, has been difficult. Rowling is generally silent about it, but in a 2012 interview with the New Yorker, she said they stopped speaking in 2003.
"We’ve not had any communication for about nine years," she said at the time. "I did not have an easy relationship with my father."
Rowling said one of the events that led to the disintegration of their relationship was in December 2003, when Peter Rowling offered his first editions of the "Harry Potter" books for sale. His copy of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was given to him on Father's Day, 2000, and signed with "Lots of love from your first born" and an illustration of a hand reaching for a gnome. It sold for $48,000.
She's the president of an organization that supports single parents.
Having been a single mother herself — her relationship with her first husband lasted just a little over a year — Rowling knows what a struggle it can be. She's the president of Gingerbread, a 100-year-old organization that supports single parents and their children.
She has spoken out about her depression.
Several times, Rowling has sought therapy to treat her depression. Two periods in particular — while she was writing "Sorcerer's Stone" and living in near-poverty while raising her daughter, and when her life transformed with fame — were particularly difficult.
"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable,'" Rowling told the Sunday Times. "Mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted."
The first printing of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was 500 copies.
Bloomsbury was a relatively modest publishing company when it published the first "Harry Potter" book in the UK, and it had relatively modest ambitions for the novel. They gave her a £2,500 advance for the book.
The "K" isn't actually a part of her name.
Rowling chose the pen name "J.K. Rowling" at the insistence of her publisher, who thought boys would be dissuaded by picking up a book by a female author. The "J" stands for her real first name, "Joanne." But she doesn't have a middle name, so she picked up "Kathleen," for her paternal grandmother.
The "Harry Potter" novels weren't always released around the world at the same time.
As the "Harry Potter" fandom grew, late-night release parties became a staple. With every new book, people would stay up bookstores until the clock hit midnight and they were allowed to purchase the book.
For that to make sense, the books had to come out on the same day in every country in the world (or at least the ones that translated it in time). But it wasn't until "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth book, that international publishers started coordinating. In fact, there was a full year between the UK release of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and the US version, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
She wore a disguise when she went shopping for a wedding dress.
When she was preparing to marry Neil Murray, a Scottish doctor, in 2001, Rowling was too famous to go shopping for a wedding dress like a regular person. So she wore a disguise.
"I just wanted to be able to get married to Neil without any rubbish happening,"she told The Guardian.
She declined to reveal what the disguise was in case she needs to use it again.
She spends one day a week on "charity stuff."
Rowling is a major philanthropist, giving tens of millions of dollars away for different causes and even dropping off of the Forbes billionaire list because of her contributions.
In a 2003 interview, she said she specifically sets aside one day of the week to focus on "charity stuff."
She plans for her crime novel series to be longer than "Harry Potter."
In addition to her "Harry Potter" work, Rowling writes a series of crime novels under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The first one, "The Cuckoo's Calling," was published in 2013, and she's since written two sequels. She said she plans to write more "Strike" novels than "Harry Potter" books.
Her favorite author is Jane Austen.
She said she read "Emma" at least 20 times.
"I've read all her books so many times I've lost count," she told Amazon.
Her favorite living novelist is the Irish author Roddy Doyle.
Doyle — a novelist, playwright, and short story author — has a following in the UK, but not so much in the United States. His work mainly focuses on working class people living in Dublin.
She said she's a fan of his novel "The Woman Who Walked Through Doors" in particular.
She wrote part of an unpublished children's book on a dress.
Aside from "Harry Potter," Rowling's novels — "A Casual Vacancy" and "The Cuckoo's Calling" — have abided to realism. But she told CNN she was working on a politically-minded "fairy tale" for children.
She may never publish it, but she revealed it to the world on a dress she wore at a party.
"The theme of my 50th birthday ... was come as your own private nightmare,"Rowling told CNN. "And I went as a lost manuscript."
The author scrawled bits of her story on her dress. "It's actually hanging in a wardrobe currently," she said. Photos of the dress weren't made available.
She wrote a song.
For "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," Rowling wrote a song called "Blind Pig" that features in one of the scenes. You can listen to it here.
Her favorite drink is a gin and tonic.
She's one of many authors with signature drinks.
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