Ten years ago come August, U.K. publisher Bloomsbury made an offer to first-time novelist J.K. Rowling on a book about a plucky tween wizard named Harry Potter. Rowling had begun work on the book six years earlier and was uncertain that it would ever be published.
Just a decade later, Joanne "Jo" Rowling, 40, is the first person to have become a billionaire from writing books, having sold over 300 million copies of the first six books in the planned seven-part Harry Potter saga.
And to prove she has REALLY arrived, Rowling was invited to read from her latest Potter adventure, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, at Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday party yesterday at Buckingham Palace.
Regarding book seven, which Rowling is now pondering and scribbling, she said, "I am feeling sad as it is the last one. But so far, so good." When asked about the book's progress, she said, "I'm doing well I think. You can never really tell till you get near the end. I am not quite there yet."
Besides the Queen and her court, 2,000 children were in attendance for Rowling's reading. A thousand kids from four to 14 won tickets to attend the event in a lottery as part of the monarch’s birthday celebrations. Each was allowed to bring a friend and an adult.
“I think this is the most wonderful way to celebrate the Queen’s 80th birthday,” Rowling told The Times. "We are in a golden age for children’s literature in Britain. I always believed children would come back to enjoying books - and that’s not just down to me." Harry Potter would have been “a bit fazed” by the event, she said. “But he’s quite cool, and I think he would have been impressed."
As part of the proceedings, an elaborate show was made of sending an owl from the Palace to "Hogwarts" in pursuit of wizardly aid to resolve the crisis of the Queen's stolen handbag. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), and Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) participated in a prerecorded segment of the show—filmed in the Gryffindor common room on the Order of the Phoenix set—where they received the owl and debated how to handle the crisis. They ended up lending the muggles some magic.
Article comments
1 - Eric Berlin
"An Evening With Harry, Carrie and Garp" sounds very cool. I wonder how Rowling feels about Harry Potter's very brief mention near the end of the Dark Tower series (as part of the uber-meta narrative of that epic quest of a tale).
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I agree with Eric about the evening with John Irving and - well I could do without Stephen King. But I learned an awful lot from John Irving. And Jo Rawling has improved my boys' English as well as their perspective on the world...
It's a shame that Doctors Without Borders will benefit, IMHO. They've shafted us here enough. But that's life...
3 - Eric Olsen
I'm certain their show will do quite well - especially with the Q&A part with the audience