Life Summary: J.K. Rowling, Multi-Millionaire Novelist

J.K. Rowling experienced unemployment, death and divorce in her 20s and went on to turn those life lessons into inspiration for a book series that would go on to take the world by storm. This is the timeline of the life of the woman who created Harry Potter. 

1965 – Joanne Rowling is born in Gloucestershire, England to a lab technician and an aircraft worker. 

Age 2 – Her sister is born. 

Age 9 – Jo and family move to Tutshill, a small village in the countryside. There is a castle, forest and river near the village. 

Age 11 – She goes to Wyedean Comprehensive School. She discovers Jane Austen. 

Age 15 – Her mother develops multiple sclerosis and gets weaker by the day. In her last year in Wyedean, she is chosen to be head girl. 

Age 18 – Jo graduates and enrols into the University of Exeter. She studies French, Latin and Greek and spends a year in Paris as a teaching assistant. 

Age 22 – She graduates and moves to Clapham, London. She gets a job as secretary at Amnesty International and writes stories during her lunch hour. She writes several adult novels but never finishes them. 

Age 25 – While on a train trip to Manchester to look at apartments there, she gets the idea for a story about a boy called Harry Potter. She moves to Manchester and her ideas for this story grows. Her mother dies. She moves to Portugal to teach English and continues to write the story in her head. 

Age 27 – Jo marries a journalist named Jorge Arantes. 

Age 28 onwards – They have a baby girl together but split up that year. Jo takes her baby and moves to Edinburgh where her sister lives with her husband. Because she doesn’t have a job, she lives on public assistance. She writes every time her baby sleeps. Eventually, she gets a job as a French teacher but continues writing her book.

Age 31 – She tries to get an agent and is rejected before finding one. Her agent then sells her book to Bloomsbury Publishers after 12 rejections from other publishers. With the money from the sale, she quits her French teaching job and goes back to writing her next book about the life of the boy wizard named Harry Potter. A US Publisher offers $100,000 to buy the US rights for her book. 

Age 32 – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is published in the United Kingdom. They write her name as J.K. Rowling as they are afraid boys will not want to read a book written by a woman. It is a big hit and voted winner of the Smarties Book Prize. 

Age 33 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is published in the United States. She wins more awards. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is released in the United Kingdom. She travels to America for a book tour. Her books are now on the New York Bestsellers list. 

Age 34 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is released. Now adults are fans of her books too. She wins more awards. She becomes world famous and reporters start to appear outside her house.

Age 35 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is released. Jo meets Dr Neil Murray, a friend of a friend. She establishes the Volant Charitable Trust to combat poverty and social inequality. 

Age 36 – They buy a 19th century mansion in Scotland and marry. By this time, Harry Potter is a worldwide phenomenon. The movie to her first book is released. She writes 2 books for charity: Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.

LUCK-IT will receive a tiny commission when you purchase this product, at no additional cost to you.

Age 38 – Jo and Neil have a son. Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix is published. 

Age 40 – Jo and Neil have another daughter. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is published. Within 24 hours, 9mil copies of the book are sold. Jo now owns 3 houses in total and hires a bodyguard to protect her family.

Age 42 – Jo finishes the last book in the Harry Potter series—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—in a hotel room in Edinburgh. It is published that year. 

Age 43 – Jo publishes The Tales of Beedle the Bard—a book of short tales described in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She also releases Harry Potter, the prequel. 

Age 44 – She wins more awards. 

Age 46 – Jo launches Pottermore, an online interactive reading experience for fans. 

Age 47 – She releases a new book unrelated to the Harry Potter series—The Casual Vacancy—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. 

Age 48 – She releases ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ under her pseudonym, the first in her Cormoran Strike series. The book sells 500 copies until the Sunday Times investigates a rumour that Robert is Jo and proves it to be true. Within days, sales soar. 

LUCK-IT will receive a tiny commission when you purchase this product, at no additional cost to you.

Age 49 – The Silkworm—the second Cormoran Strike novel—is released. 

Age 50 – Career of Evil—the third Cormoran. Strike novel is released. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child which is a play about Harry Potter’s youngest son, Albus is released.

Age 52 – Cormoran Strike is turned into a television series in the UK and picked up for distribution in the United States and Canada.

Age 53 – The fourth Cormoran Strike novel titled Lethal White is released. 

2020 – Jo is presently 55 years old.

More life summaries available here.

Photographs: John Mathew Smith, celebrity-photos.com. Compiler: Sy
Sponsor or support the Life Summary series here.
If you found this article useful: