The J.K. Rowling Index

List of all J.K. Rowling's writings.

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Work Category: Writing

Goal Getters

non fiction

Index ID: GG — Publication date: March 2006

Note: Published in the magazine Personal Excellence, March 2006, volume 11, issue 3.

Young ladies 200 years ago weren’t allowed to read novels because it would inflame them, excite them, and make them long for things that weren’t real. I was distressed to read about Virginia Woolf being told she mustn’t write because it woudl exacerbate her mental condition. We need a place to escape, whether as a writer or a reader, and the world that I’ve createdis a shining example of a world to which it’s pleasant to escape. I recall the beautiful image from C.S. Lewis where there are the pools, the “World Between Worlds,” and you can jump into the different pools to access the different worlds. That for me was always a metaphor for a library. And that for me is what literature should be.
Today, children need stories because they need to test their imaginations, try on other people’s ideas, inhabit other lives, send their minds where their bodies are not yet mature enough to go. No films, no TV program, no computer or video game can ever duplicate the magic that occurs when the reader’s imagination meets the author’s to create a unique, private kingdom.
In writing Harry Potter, I sought to show how truly heoric it is to fight a battle that can never be won.

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The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

manuscript

Index ID: BLACKTREE — Publication date: February 21st, 2006

Note: This genealogical tree of the Black family was made by J.K. Rowling to be offered for sale to benefit Book Aid International. It was sold for £30,000 and the buyer was Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter in the film adaptations.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of BLACK
(there are many stories between the lines)
J.K. Rowling

Sirius (1845-1853)

Phineus Nigellus (1847-1925)
Ursula Flint

Elladora (1850-1931)

Sirius (1877-1952)
Hesper Gamp

Cygnus (1889-1943)
Violetta Bulstrode

Belvina (1886-1962)
Herbert Burke

Acrtunus (1884-1959)
Lysandra Yaxley

Arcuturs (1901-1991)
Melania Macmillan

Lycoris (1904-1965)

Regulus (1906-1959)

Pollux (1912-1990)
Irma Crabbe

Cassiapeia (1915-1992)

Dorea (1920-1977)
Charlus Potter

Callidora (1915-)
Harfand Longbottom

Charis (1919-1973)
Caspar Crouch

Lucretia (1925-1992)
Ignatius Prewett

Orion (1929-1979)
Walburga (1925-1985)

Cirgnus (1938-1992)
Druella Rosier

Regulus (1961-1979)

Bellatrix (1951-)
Rodolphus Lestrange

Narcissa (1955-)
Lucius Malfoy

Draco Malfoy (1980-)

Disowned Family Members

Iola Black – married Muggle Bob Hitchens
Phineus – supported Muggle Rights
Marius Black – Squib
Cedrella Black – Married blood traitor Septimus Weasley
Alphard Black – gave gold to runaway nephew Sirius
Sirius Black – ran away from home
Andromeda Black – married Muggle-born Ted Tonks

‘I used to be there,’ said Sirius, pointing at a small, round, charred hole in the tapestry, rather like a cigarette burn. ‘My sweet old mother blasted me off after I ran away from home…’
HARRY POTTER & THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

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My Fight

non fiction articles

Index ID: FIGHT — Publication date: February 5th, 2006

Note: Published in Sunday Times. Published four days later, on February 9th, on The Sun under the title "My fight for cage kids".
Only the beginning of this text can be displayed here for research purposes. I apologize!

My eldest daughter keeps a pair of rats and I’m quite happy to let them sit on my shoulder while she cleans them out; snakes have never bothered me and, while I don’t much like spiders, I could hold a tarantula if I had to. For me the worst thing in the world, the one unendurable terror, the thing that I cannot even imagine without an accelerating pulse and a compulsion to stand up and move fast in any direction, is incarceration in a very small space.

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Foreword: One City

foreword

Index ID: FWOC — Publication date: January 2nd, 2006

Note: Foreword for the book "One City", by Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh.

When I arrived in Edinburgh in December 1993, the city was snow-covered, almost dauntingly beautiful and austerely unfamiliar. I did not mean to stay here; I had come to spend Christmas at my sister’s and supposed that I would then head south, where most of my friends were at that time.

January came, the snow vanished, but I didn’t. Princes Street Gardens were within easy walking distance and entrance to the Museum of Scotland was free; my baby was growing into a toddler and loved tottering around both of them. I stumbled along in her wake, wondering what was going to happen to us, almost as shell-shocked as finding myself in this strange new city as I was to be a single mother, broke and jobless.

It was not Edinburgh’s fault that I was in this mess, but as it happened to form the backdrop for the ‘rags’ part of what might as well be called my Cinderella story, I came to know more about being poor and isolated here than in any other city. It was in Edinburgh, rather than in Paris, London, Manchester or Oporto, all of which I inhabited during my nomadic twenties, that I became most acutely aware of the barriers, invisible and inflexible as bullet-proof glass, that separate those in the affluent and able-bodied mainstream of our society from those who, for whatever reason, live on its fringes.

Most of my pre-Potter Edinburgh days were spent in a small block of flats that housed, at that time, three other single mothers. I was very glad to move in, because it was a big improvement on my previous glorified bed-sit, and in my three years there my daughter learned to walk and talk and I secured my life’s ambition: a publishing deal. But it was also there that a group of local boys amused themselves on dull nights by throwing stones at my two year old’s bedroom window; there that I wrestled a drunk man back out of my hallway as he tried to force open the front door; there that we were broken into one night while we lay in bed. And I knew that far worse happened to other people, and people not so far away either; my upstairs neighbour used to pause to chat on the stairs wearing sunglasses to hide her black eyes.

Violence, crime and addiction were part of everyday life in that part of Edinburgh. Yet barely ten minutes away by bus was a different world, a world of cashmere and cream teas and the imposing facades of the institutions that make this city the fourth largest financial centre in Europe. I felt in those days as though there was an abyss separating me from those who bustled past me carrying briefcases and Jenners bags — and, in truth, there was.

The OneCity Trust has identified this separation as a ‘”culture of contentment”, which insulates [the more affluent] from the disadvantage experienced by excluded groups and areas’. These groups may include the poor, the disabled, those marginalized due to their ethnicity or, in the words of OneCity, ‘people who feel isolated from others and from the benefits of the city’, a wholly accurate description of how I felt then.

Social exclusion affects all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, because it is on the outskirts of society that misery, despair, physical and mental health problems, and the abuse of the self and others flourish. Every city, every citizen, would benefit directly and tangibly from helping bring down those barriers that prevent children reaching their full potential, keep would-be workers from earning and isolate so many within their own homes or their own heads.

The OneCity Trust has enabled both individuals and organisations to make their voices heard, perhaps for the first time ever within a city and a society that can seem to have forgotten them. The Trust is now analysing that information and making recommendations for a more inclusive Edinburgh, so that changes can be made to make this city more completely ours — all of ours.

In the past few years, since the stunningly unexpected change of fortune that hit me with the publication of my first book, Edinburgh has often been described as my ‘adopted’ home city. True, I retain traces of my West Country accent, and I tend to keep my jumper on even while pale blue men are basting themselves in the watery sunshine in Princes Street Gardens; these are sure pointers to the fact that I wasn’t born in the old Simpsons’. But as it happens, I have never lived so long anywhere, either as adult or child, as I have lived here. Edinburgh is home now, it is part of me, and I had come to love it long before Harry Potter hit the bookshelves. I am proud to live here, and proud that my home city is committed to becoming a more inclusive place. OneCity seeks to unify: I cannot think of a better goal, for Edinburgh, Scotland, or the world.

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Dear German Booksellers – Book 6

non fiction

Index ID: DGB6 — Publication date: November, 2005

Note: This foreword appear as a message in the special edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince created for booksellers in Germany.

Dear Booksellers,

Once again I would like to send my special thanks to
you all for working so enthusiastically
to bring Harry Potter’s world to so many
German speaking readers.

Very best wishes

J.K. Rowling

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Rubbish Bin: Pure Garbage (Desktop Website)

non fiction official website

Index ID: RB6DW — Publication date: August 10th, 2005 to November 15th, 2007

Dr. Neil Murray ‘gives up work’

Last year several newspaper stories alleged that my husband had given up work, presumably to sit at home and watch me write. This is one of those stories that make me angry, because they hurt my family. We asked the newspapers who had printed the misinformation to correct the story, which they did. However, an article has recently appeared in which Neil is yet again described as not working. So… and hopefully for the last time… Neil has NEVER given up work and continues to practise as a doctor in Edinburgh.

Gilderoy Lockhart is based on JKR’s first husband

No, he most certainly is not. I have always been honest about the fact that Gilderoy Lockhart WAS inspired by a real man (see the ‘Extras’ section). For obvious reasons I am not going to identify the person in question – however irritating he was, he does not deserve that – but I can state categorically that I never married him. I do not lie about the inspiration for characters (although at times like these, I wonder why I don’t refuse to answer these questions at all!)

Harry Potter based on JKR’s cousin

Once more I put fingers to keyboard to state wearily that Harry is a completely imaginary character. He is not based on any of the men I have met during my lifetime who wore glasses, or any of the boys who had a scar somewhere on their face, or any of my friends who went to boarding school. But wait – now I stop and think about it, I’M the real Harry Potter! I wear glasses, I’ve got a scar, my school had houses, I sometimes got into trouble… so stand by to read a story in some tabloid tomorrow headlined: ‘Rowling Demands Half-Share of Own Royalties’. Unfortunately and depressingly, these sorts of stories crop up all the time (see my ‘Biography’). There is nothing any author can do to stop people claiming that they ‘inspired’ characters. I can only tell the truth and trust that readers with a grain of sense will know whom to believe.

Joanie

According to a recent article in a UK newspaper, I am known to my good friends as ‘Joanie’. Just for the record, nobody, in the whole course of my life, has ever called me ‘Joanie.’ I’m looking forward to finding out what my husband calls me. ‘Kevin’, perhaps.

Rowling is ‘riled’ by being seen as a children’s author

Absolute garbage! I have said many times that if I remain a children’s author forever (which I may well do) I will never see this as being a lesser, easier or less ‘serious’ career than writing for adults. Whenever I have discussed the possibility of writing adult fiction, it has nearly always been because an interviewer has asked ‘might you one day write a book for adults?’

Rowling hates Harry Potter

I love Harry Potter and I always will.

Rowling has had Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to dinner at her house.

Well, I just hope they remember it, because I can’t.

J K Rowling is not a real person, but the name given to a group of anonymous writers

This theory originated in Norway, which figures… nobody who is familiar with the UK press could possibly imagine that such a massive fraud would remain unexposed for longer than ten minutes.

According to a British newspaper, I recently appeared at a Brazilian literary festival. And was I content to take home a nice bit of pottery or leatherwork as a souvenir?

No, not good enough for JK. I decided to buy myself a palatial Brazilian holiday home while I was there. If any Brazilian Harry Potter fans are reading this and wondering why they never got the chance to buy tickets to hear me read, it’s because I’ve never been to Brazil. And if any Brazilian property dealers are wondering why they didn’t get my business, it’s because I’ve never bought a house in Brazil, either. Not even the sumptuous colonial-style mansion, whose grounds nudge the edge of a forest, described in the article. My imaginary neighbour was Mick Jagger, too. I’d say you couldn’t make it up… except someone has.

JKR has no right to talk about the glorification of unhealthily underweight women in some sections of the media, because there’s a fat boy in her books.

There have been several variants of this story, all of which were written by people who had either never read past chapter two of ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, or chose simply to ignore what the rest of us fondly term ‘facts’. I thought of listing all the many characters in the Harry Potter books who are on the plumper side, to demonstrate what a very diverse group of personalities they are, how they include several of my most important, admirable and lovable characters, and how ‘overweight’ in no way equates to ‘bad’ in my fictional world… but Andy from Mugglenet has done it for me. See http://www.mugglenet.com/infosection/opinion/fatfem.shtml. Andy, I really owe you, because I’ve used the time you saved me to type up half a chapter instead!

J K Rowling does pilates, yoga, jogs, has botox injections and has cut out saturated fats

Apparently I’ve been ‘Rowling back the years’ (ho, ho). Yes, the secrets behind my new (ahem) health and beauty regime have been confided to a British newspaper by a ‘friend’. Now, most people stop having imaginary friends once they’re adults, but mine sometimes drop in on journalists to give them completely unrecognisable accounts of my life. My carbon-based friends, however, if asked whether I jog, do pilates and yoga, have a frozen forehead or refuse cake, might well suffer some kind of mirth-induced internal injury. It would be churlish not to thank the journalist concerned for saying that I look better now than I did in the early days of Harry Potter’s success, and I am indeed grateful for the underlying compliment. In the interests of accuracy, however, I must point out that, far from losing weight, I’ve gained a good bit since the ‘before’ photographs featured in the article. So J K Rowling’s top tip for today is: eat more. Perhaps my next project could be a revolutionary diet book?

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

novel

Index ID: HPHBP — Publication date: July 16th, 2005

Only the beginning of this text can be displayed here for research purposes. I apologize!

It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind. He was waiting for a call from the president of a far-distant country, and between wondering when the wretched man would telephone, and trying to suppress unpleasant memories of what had been a very long, tiring and difficult week, there was not much space in his head for anything else. The more he attempted to focus on the print on the page before him, the more clearly the Prime Minister could see the gloating face of one of his political opponents. This particular opponent had appeared on the news that very day, not only to enumerate all the terrible things that had happened in the last week (as though anyone needed reminding) but also to explain why each and every one of them was the government’s fault.

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Rubbish Bin: Excessive Additives (Desktop Website)

official website

Index ID: RB5DW — Publication date: May 26th, 2005 to November 2007

JKR has said that ‘Half-Blood Prince’ is her best book yet

No, she hasn’t. She is superstitious about saying things like that! What she said – on this very website – was that she had not been this happy with a book since she finished ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’.

J K Rowling ‘veto-ed Steven Spielberg as the director of the first Harry Potter film’

I don’t choose directors for the Harry Potter films! I’ve met all three men who’ve had the job to date – Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell – and I’ve liked all of them very much, enjoyed answering their questions about the characters and plots and have been delighted with the films they made (I haven’t seen Goblet yet, but the omens are good!). But that’s the full extent of my involvement with directors. Steven Spielberg did consider directing ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, but decided against it; anyone who thinks I could (or would) have ‘veto-ed’ him needs their Quick-Quotes Quill serviced.

JKR has written 750 pages of book 7, and told a journalist this at the tea party for ‘Driving Lessons’.

Oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. I haven’t written 750 pages of book seven, and if I had, I’d be very worried, as I’m not close to finishing it yet. I was at the tea party for Driving Lessons, though, so this isn’t pure fiction. The journalist reports that I said that Rupert is ‘absolutely terrific’ in the film. He is, so that bit shouldn’t be in the rubbish bin at all.

J K Rowling demands 2 million rupees from religious charities in India

Recently there were a number of reports that Warner Bros. and I had taken legal action against religious charities in India because they constructed a Hogwarts castle as part of a Hindu festival. Here are the facts. The defendants were not religious charities, and theirs was not a religious celebration. On the contrary, it was a large-scale, commercial, sponsored event involving corporations that included a major Indian high street bank. The event was, however, set up while a Hindu festival was going on. It was Warner Bros who brought the case, because the rights that were being infringed belong to them, not me. My name has to be attached to such proceedings as a legal technicality, because I am the underlying creator of Harry Potter series. Also due to a technicality, Warner Bros were obliged to claim damages as part of their claim. However, they waived this right, and neither sought nor obtained any financial compensation. It is completely false to assert that they, or I, were trying to take money from anybody, let alone two million rupees. The court ruled that Warner Bros. rights had indeed been infringed, and that events such as the one in question would need Warner Bros.’ permission in the future. The court also restrained all the defendants from any future events infringing Warner Bros. rights. Some of the news agencies and newspapers who misreported this story subsequently issued corrections and apologies, but the original, false story is still doing the rounds. In the immortal words of Mark Twain, ‘a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.’

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The Ballad of Nearly Headless Nick

manuscript

Index ID: BNHN — Publication date: March 24th, 2005

Note: This manuscript was contributed to an auction to raise funds for Scottish Language Dictionaries.

It was a mistake any wizard could make,
Who was tired and caught on the hop,
One piffling error, and then, to my terror,
I found myself facing the chop.
Alas for the eve when I met Lady Grieve,
A-strolling the park in the dusk!
She was of the belief I could straighten her teeth,
Next moment she’d sprouted a tusk.

I cried through the night that I’d soon put her right,
But the process of justice was lax;
They’d brought out the block, though they’d mislaid the rock,
Where they usually sharpened the axe.
Next morning at dawn, with a face most forlorn,
The priest said to try not to cry,
“You can come just like that, no, you won’t need a hat,”
And I knew that my end must be nigh.

The man in the mask who would have the sad task,
Of cleaving my head from my neck,
Said “Nick, if you please, will you get to your knees,”
And I turned to a gibbering wreck.
“This may sting a bit” said the cack-handed twit,
As he swung the axe up in the air,
But oh the blunt blade! No difference it made,
My head was still definitely there.”

The axeman he hacked and he whacked and he thwacked,
“Won’t be too long”, he assured me,
But quick it was not, and the bone-headed clot,
Took forty-five goes ’til he floored me.
And so I was dead, but my faithful old head,
It never saw fit to desert me,
It still lingers on, that’s the end of my song,
And now, please applaud, or you’ll hurt me.

Poem cut from ‘Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets’
by
J.K. Rowling

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