J.K. Rowling: From Harry Potter to ‘Casual Vacancy’

‘Rags to riches’ is shorthand to describe J.K. Rowling’s journey from a humble childhood and surviving as a single mother to billionaire and author of a highly anticipated adult novel. Here are a few stops along the way.

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Her parents met on the train

King's Cross Station has a greater significance for Rowling than the start of Harry Potter's mythical Hogwarts Express. Her parents met as strangers on a train from the London station. Her dad was a Rolls-Royce engineer and her mom was half-Scottish, half-French, according to a 2003 profile in The Scotsman. Neither had attended college and both were from impoverished backgrounds. (Left, an image of the train filmmakers used to transport the Harry Potter character to wizarding school.)

/ AP

She was kind of like Hermione

Rowling has characterized her teen years as unhappy and said she shared many of the characteristics of the bookish Hermione in the Potter series. "She's a caricature of me when I was 11, which I'm not particularly proud of,'' Rowling told School Library Journal in 1999. "She's quite annoying in a lot of ways. I like her as a character, but I'm very aware that some people wouldn't.'' (In this film publicity image, Emma Watson is shown as Hermione Granger in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.")

Anonymous / AP

The idea

She has said she got the inspiration for the Potter series during a 1990 train journey from Manchester to London. She was determined to write novels, an idea that seemed alien to her parents, who had wanted her to pursue vocational work. "It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head. It was an excitement I’d never known before,'' she told the Boston Globe in 2009. (Left, Rowling signs a book for a fan in 2000).

Louis M. Lanzano / AP

'The biggest failure I knew'

It took six years to finish her first Potter book. According to The Scotsman, it was a rough and eventful period. In that time, her mom died of Multiple Sclerosis, she had moved to Portugal, started teaching and got married to a journalist she met in a bar. Their daughter, Jessica, was born in the summer of 1993; by winter the couple had separated. Rowling, a classics major without a job seven years after graduation, would head to Edinburgh, a daughter in tow and clinically depressed, she told Harvard's class of 2008 at its commencement. "The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass,'' she said. "And by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.'' (Left, Rowling pauses during an interview at the Caledonian Hotel.)

Ian Torrance / AP

Coming back

In the same Harvard speech, she spoke of her way back--and what helped her: her daughter, her beat-up manual typewriter and her big idea about a kid who transcends pain and loneliness. "Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive.'' (Left, Rowling signs autographs outside Odense Concert Hall.)

Jens Nørgaard Larsen / AFP/Getty Images

Success

It is hard to overstate the popularity of the seven Potter books, the last of which was published in 2007. More than 450 million have been sold. Forbes called Rowling the first author to become a billionaire through her work. She remarried in 2001. She was active in the eight-movie series and served as producer for the last two, which covered the last novel. She was among those in Danny Boyle's dazzling introduction to the 2012 Olympics in London, reading a snippet of "Peter Pan.'' to a group of children.

Continental / AFP/Getty Images

The move to adult fiction

Why did she take a break from the fantasy genre of her Harry Potter books? “You don’t have sex near unicorns. It’s an ironclad rule. It’s tacky,” she told the New Yorker. Her change of pace? An adult novel. (Left, Rowling holds a certificate after being presented with the Freedom of the City of London in May.)

Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

'The Casual Vacancy'

Secrecy has surrounded the release of her new book. Here’s the plot description from publisher Little, Brown: "When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils. ...''

Uncredited / AP

Her next move?

Rowling has told the New Yorker she's working on two children's books and is a few chapters into her second adult novel. She is determined and self-contained, sometimes to a fault, her husband, Neil Murray, has said. “When she’s very stressed, she’ll detach herself and only trust one person,'' he said, "and that’s herself.'' (Left, Rowling takes part in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games on July 27).

Jewel Samad / AFP/Getty Images

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