Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J K Rowling has written fiction since she was a child, and she always wanted to be an author. Her parents loved reading and their house in Chepstow was full of books. In fact, J K Rowling wrote her first ‘book’ at the age of six – a story about a rabbit called Rabbit. She studied French and Classics at Exeter University, then moved to Edinburgh – via London and Portugal. In 2000 she was awarded an OBE for services to children’s literature.

The idea for Harry Potter occurred to her on the train from Manchester to London, where she says Harry Potter ‘just strolled into my head fully formed’, and by the time she had arrived at King’s Cross, many of the characters had taken shape. During the next five years she outlined the plots for each book and began writing the first in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was first published in 1997.