JK Rowling is planning to write a new book for children. Forbes named JK Rowling the highest paid writer. You look good in all your outfits, darling.”

On July 31, 2017, the most famous living British writer, the mother of the famous “boy who lived” JK Rowling, celebrated her fifty-second birthday.

We invite you to learn a few little-known facts about the life and work of the famous creator of Harry Potter. Let's go through some milestones in her biography...

At 6 years old

... Joan began to write. Her first creation was the book “Rabbit” about a little rabbit who had measles. The first and not very impartial critic was the mother of the future writer.

11 year old

... Joan became the prototype for Hermione Granger, an excellent student and, according to one of the Hogwarts professors, an “intolerable know-it-all.” “She’s a caricature of eleven-year-old me, which I’m not particularly proud of,” the writer said in an interview.

23 months

... Joan's first marriage lasted. She divorced her husband when she was 25. Rowling was left with a little daughter.

In 1990

…. Joan moved to Manchester, where she got a job as a teacher. in English. There she began sketching the future book about Harry Potter. The first notes appeared on a napkin when Rowling, struggling to make ends meet, was sitting on a train that was stuck on the road for four hours.

12 publishing houses

... refused to publish the first Harry Potter book. Only a year later the manuscript was accepted by the small London publishing house Bloomsbury. Even Chief Editor publishing house did not believe in success: he doubted that Rowling would make a lot of money from children's books and advised her to find permanent job.

Just a thousand

... printed copies amounted to the circulation of the first book about Harry. Half of them are distributed to British libraries.

1500 pounds

... made Rowling's advance for the first book about the young wizard.

Platform 9¾,

... from which the train departs for Hogwarts is not by chance located at one of the largest London stations - King's Cross. It was there that Rowling's parents met. Therefore, this place has been magical for her since childhood.

In November 2001

... the film “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was released. The writer insisted that the films be shot exclusively in Britain and with the participation of British actors.

In the third Harry Potter book

... dementors appeared - creatures that suck out the soul. They were the result of clinical depression that Rowling suffered from. She even had thoughts of suicide.

11 million copies

... the final Harry Potter book sold out on its first day of sales in England and the United States.

In 2000

... Rowling was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

$15 billion

...in total the value of the Harry Potter brand is estimated.

... Joan remarried. Her chosen one was anesthesiologist Neil Michael Murray. The couple is raising two children.

In 2007

... Rowling auctioned off one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book of fairy tales mentioned in the pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for £1.95 million by Amazon.com, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction. Joan donated the funds to charity.

In 2012

... Rowling released her first book for adult readers called The Casual Vacancy. The BBC made a mini-series based on this work.

17 years

... worked on the Harry Potter novel by JK Rowling. The work was completed in February 2007.

In June 2017

... it became known that Joan had begun work on a new novel - a fairy tale with political motives.

First in the world

... Joan became a billionaire writer. In general, we congratulate her on this!

According to Forbes magazine, writer JK Rowling is the owner of the largest fortune in literary world. Of course, the series of books about Harry Potter brought her the status of a billionaire, which, according to news reports, JK Rowling recently lost. Previously, no writer managed to become a billionaire, for example, one of the most popular writers modern Stephen King, was able to earn only 200 million dollars from his works. The Harry Potter brand is estimated to be worth between $21 and $24 billion.

It is curious that there was a moment in JK Rowling when the head of the publishing house warned the writer: “You can’t make money with children’s books, Joe...”. If only he knew how wrong he was. And he probably knows, because reports about JK Rowling’s condition often appear in the media around the world.

Although Lately most The writer’s life is not occupied, but, which is reflected both in her work and in her bank account. How much JK Rowling earned from her works is not known for certain. However, foreign media claim that after all possible deductions of taxes, the writer’s fortune is about 640 million. True, as Rowling herself has stated more than once, in the summer of 2014 another work from the series of “adult books” will be published. Perhaps the proceeds from its sale will reach 9 figures.

It is important to note that JK Rowling gave the lion's share of her fee to charity - about $160 million. It is this reason, according to researchers, that led to the loss of billionaire status. This is the first similar case in Forbes history. But this made it possible to purchase new status- “Kindness of the year”, however, is unspoken, which is sometimes more expensive than dry magazine statistics.

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"Harry Potter" - well-deserved awards

As soon as the first Potter film hit the big screen, it received universal love from fans around the world. Since then, the most devoted fans have marked the release date of the next installment on the calendar and taken seats at the ticket offices in advance, knowing that a full house could not be avoided. But not only the audience appreciated the films about magical world Hogwarts. Each part of “Potteriana” brought new titles and awards to its creators and actors.

Today in the theater: Daniel Radcliffe

“This is the end of the fairy tale,” they said about the end of “Potteriana.” Now most of the actors will return to their real world, carefully preserving memories of both magic and cinema. After all, many of them will probably remain actors of the same role. But not Daniel Radcliffe. Moreover, now we can see him not only in cinema, but also in the theater. We raise the curtain! The play with Daniel Radcliffe begins!

Forbes named Harry Potter author JK Rowling the highest paid writer of 2017. Over the past 12 months, Rowling, according to the magazine, earned $95 million. The writer's total fortune is $650 million

Joanne Rowling (Photo: Hubert Boesl/dpa/Global Look Press)

The author of the Harry Potter series of novels, JK Rowling, was recognized by Forbes magazine as the highest paid writer of 2017.

According to the magazine, general state Rowling's total is $650 million. This amount, as calculated by Forbes, is regularly supported by payments from Harry Potter theme parks in Florida, California and Japan. Moreover, this figure, as the publication explains, could have been higher if Rowling had not donated to charity over the past few years total amount approximately $150 million.

Nevertheless, the writer’s fortune, as Forbes writes, continues to increase. This, as the magazine clarifies, is mainly due to the play “Harry Potter and damn child"and the performance staged according to this script. In addition, the film “ Fantastic Beasts and where they live." So, over the past 12 months, from June last year to June 2017, Rowling, according to the magazine, earned $95 million.

Also, as the magazine recalls, more than 450 million copies of her seven Harry Potter books have been sold worldwide. In addition, income from the media franchise, according to the publication, brought in $7.7 billion.

Second place in Forbes list occupied by the author of a series of novels about Inspector Alex Cross, James Patterson. According to the publication, he earned $87 million in a year. The third place in the magazine’s ranking of the highest paid writers, meanwhile, was taken by the famous writer from the book “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” American writer Jeff Kinney ($21 million). Also in the top ten were such writers as Dan Brown- bestselling author of “Angels and Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code” ($20 million), Stephen King ($15 million), known for his “legal thrillers” and, in particular, the book “The Pelican Brief” John Grisham ($14 million), the author of futuristic detective stories about Lieutenant Eve Dallas, Nora Roberts ($14 million) and Paula Hawkins ($13 million), whose fame was brought by the novel “The Girl on the Train.”

Last year, Patterson took first place in this ranking according to Forbes. His earnings for the year, as calculated by the publication, amounted to $95 million. He then occupied the top of the list of the highest paid writers for three years in a row. Rowling in 2016 occupied only third place in this ranking ($19 million). In second place, according to the magazine, was Jeff Kinney.

Last October, it was announced that her book “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” about the Harry Potter universe would be made into five films instead of the previously planned three. “We talked about three films because we knew there would definitely be more than one, but... now we can say with confidence that there will be five films,” Rowling said at a meeting with fans in London.

British children's writer, author of a series of novels about the boy wizard Harry Potter. The success of the series (1997-2007) among readers, as well as the films based on her novels by the Warner Bros. film studio, brought Rowling worldwide fame and fortune, which Forbes magazine estimated in 2007 at $1 billion. Rowling is the owner of many prestigious literary prizes, in 2000 she was awarded the Order British Empire.

JK Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in the town of Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, near Bristol, and became the eldest of two daughters in the family. When the future writer was nine years old, the Rowlings moved to the town of Chepstow in the county of Gwent (Wales). Upon completion of the high school In 1983, Rowling entered the University of Exeter, where she studied French. This gave her the opportunity to spend a year in Paris.

After graduating from university, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, Rowling moved to London, where she changed several jobs. She spent most of her time in international human rights organization Amnesty International. In 1990, the future writer moved to Manchester, and that’s when she first came up with the idea of ​​a children’s book about a boy wizard. Also in 1990, Rowling's mother died of multiple sclerosis. A few months later, Joan got a job as an English teacher in Porto, Portugal's second largest city.

In Porto, Rowling met her future husband, television journalist Jorge Arantes. They got married in 1992, from this marriage they had a daughter, Jessica. Quite soon, Rowling and Arantes broke up: her husband, according to the writer, literally kicked her and her daughter out of the house. By Christmas 1994, Rowling was back in the UK. Together with her daughter, she moved to Edinburgh, where she lived at that time younger sister Di. By this time, a significant part of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, had already been written. In an effort to complete the book, Rowling did not take a permanent job and finished writing the novel in cafes, including the popular Nicolson’s, which belonged to her relative.

In 1995, Rowling sent the first draft of the novel to two literary agents, and the first returned the text almost immediately, not considering it promising, and the second, Christopher Little, nevertheless undertook to add the manuscript. He succeeded a year later: “Harry Potter” attracted the interest of the small London publishing house Bloomsbury. His employee Barry Cunningham offered the writer a modest advance (one and a half thousand pounds sterling) in August 1996, which Rowling readily accepted.

The first printing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997 and amounted to only a thousand copies, half of which went to children's libraries. The book did not make much of an impression, but critics still noticed it. The Scottish organization The Scottish Art Council provided Rowling with a grant so that she could begin the second volume of Potter.

In the same year, at a professional fair for children's literature publishers in Bologna, Barry Cunningham managed to sell the rights to the American edition of Harry Potter to Scholastic, which offered the writer an unusually large advance for a debutante - $105 thousand. The writer had, however, to change the title of the book to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Subsequently, she never adapted the titles of the novels for an American audience.

The second Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, appeared in 1998. That same year, the film studio Warner Bros. bought the film rights to two Rowling novels. They were released in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Both were directed by Chris Columbus. Rowling herself wanted to see Briton Terry Gilliam direct the films, but the choice was left to the studio.

The third and fourth novels, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, were published in 1999 and 2000. years

Just after Christmas 2001 (December 26), JK Rowling remarried. This time her chosen one was Edinburgh anesthetist Neil Scott Murray. The birth of two children (the couple had a son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, in March 2003, and a daughter, Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, in January 2005) slowed down work on new Potter sequels. The fifth book ("Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix") was published in 2003, and the sixth ("Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince") - in 2005.

Seventh, final novel series - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" - went on sale in the UK and USA, as well as in several other countries at midnight on July 21, 2007 local time. The premiere of Rowling's book was preceded by a series of leaks: several hackers and pirates posted a synopsis, and then digital photographs of the American edition of the book on the Internet, , , . An investigation undertaken by Scholastic publishing house revealed the sources of the leaked photographs: they turned out to be Levy Home Entertainment (LHE) and DeepDiscount.com, which, despite the embargo, delivered approximately 1,200 copies of the novel to American readers. One of the buyers posted the reshot pages of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on file-sharing networks. In addition, two days before the release of the novel, The New York Times published a review of the novel written by the publication's leading critic Michiko Kakutani. The author admitted that she bought the book from a New York store that also violated the embargo. Rowling and publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic have asked those who already have copies of the novel to “not ruin the fun for other readers.”

Rowling has repeatedly assured that the seventh novel will be the last in the series, but on the eve of its release she did not rule out that she would write a continuation of the adventures of her heroes in the future. Her agent also announced that the writer plans to publish an encyclopedia of characters and realities from her novels.

Film adaptations of Rowling's third, fourth, fifth and sixth novels appeared in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2009, respectively. The seventh novel in the series was filmed in two parts, which were filmed in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

In September 2012, Rowling's first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, was released.

The total circulation of the seven Harry Potter novels exceeded 450 million copies by 2012. In March 2007, 41-year-old Rowling's net worth was estimated at one billion dollars by Forbes magazine.

The Harry Potter novels brought the writer many awards, including Nestle Smarties Gold Award (three times), British Book Awards, Children's Book Award (twice), The Booksellers Association/The Bookseller Author of the Year Award (twice), Scottish Arts Council Children's Book Award (twice), the Spanish Prince of Asturias Prize and the Danish Hans Christian Andersen Literary Prize. In 2000, Rowling was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Rowling does a lot of charity work. In particular, she supports the Single Parents Foundation and the Foundation for Research into Multiple Sclerosis, the disease from which her mother died.

Rowling is named among the close friends of Sarah Brown, wife of the current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Used materials

Allison Pearson. JK Rowling review: "The Casual Vacancy" breaks Harry Potter's spell. - The Daily Telegraph, 27.09.2012

Jill Martin Wren. Muggle moms await first adult J.K. Rowling book. - CNN, 26.09.2012

Fans queue to see the final Harry Potter film. - BBC News, 15.07.2011

Catherine Shoard. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows breaks box office records. - The Guardian, 22.11.2010

Rowling wins new Danish literary award. - CBC News, 19.10.2010

Tim Masters. Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. - BBC News, 08.07.2009

Elizabeth Hand. Harry's Final Fantasy: Last Time's the Charm. - The Washington Post, 22.07.2007

Michiko Kakutani. An Epic Showdown as Harry Potter Is Initiated Into Adulthood. - The New York Times, 19.07.2007

Today, July 31, the English writer JK Rowling, who gave the world a story about little wizard Harry Potter turns 53 years old. In honor of this event, “Owl” decided to remember little known facts from the creative and personal life of this talented person.

4. Quidditch is one of the highlights of the book about the young wizard. It turns out that Rowling also came up with it during a moment of emotional distress. She had a fight with a guy, which made her very worried - she later said that her condition could be compared to what a man experiences when watching a basketball game. And this helped her come up with a new game - the writer sketched out notebook rules new game, charts, graphs, and the names of the balls: she chose the Quaffle, Bludger and Snitch.

16 of September in Moscow, on stage International Moscow House of Music there will be a festival “Cinema sound. World Soundtracks". In that autumn evening performed chamber orchestra Collegium Musicum soundtracks from popular films will be played, including from Harry Potter. Tickets can be purchased at the Ponominalu box office or on the website.

5. It’s hard to believe, but J. K. Rowling was refused to publish the Harry Potter story by 14 publishers! And only the 15th attempt was successful - the Bloomsbury publishing house decided to accept the book for publication. At that time, it was believed that selling 3,000 copies was already jumping over one’s head. By the way, today about 500 million copies have already been sold worldwide.

6. Many of the characters in the Harry Potter book are taken from real people. Rowling has repeatedly said that Professor Snape and Gilderoy Lockhart are exaggerated versions of her acquaintances. But Hermione is a projection on Rowling: they even have the same favorite animal - the otter.

Cover: “Mir24”