The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997.

[2] Staff at Bloomsbury Publishing suggested that she use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating that young boys – their target audience – would not want to read a book written by a woman.

[10] Her parents Anne (née Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the previous year on a train, sharing a trip from King's Cross station, London, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland.

[71][72] Rowling always wanted to be a writer,[73] but chose to study French and the classics at the University of Exeter for practical reasons, influenced by her parents who thought job prospects would be better with evidence of bilingualism.

"[125] Rowling was awarded a writer's grant by the Scottish Arts Council[l] to support her childcare costs and finances before Philosopher's Stone's publication, and to aid in writing the sequel, Chamber of Secrets.

[146][147] Rowling accepted the offer with the provision that the studio only produce Harry Potter films based on books she authored,[148] while retaining the right to final script approval,[149] and some control over merchandising.

[130] According to her biographer Sean Smith, the publicity became effective marketing for Harry Potter,[130] but her journey from living on benefits to wealth brought, along with fame, concerns from different groups about the books' portrayals of the occult and gender roles.

[170] After the UK Press Complaints Commission ruled that a magazine had breached Jessica's privacy when the eight-year-old was included in a photograph of the family taken during that trip,[171][172] Murray and Rowling sought a more private and quiet place to live and work.

[197] Continuing the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels, The Silkworm was released in 2014;[198] Career of Evil in 2015;[199] Lethal White in 2018;[200] Troubled Blood in 2020;[201] The Ink Black Heart in 2022;[202] and The Running Grave in 2023.

[232] Scholars agree that Harry Potter is heavily influenced by the children's fantasy of writers such as Lewis, Goudge, Nesbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Diana Wynne Jones.

[236] Earlier works prominently featuring characters who learn to use magic include Le Guin's Earthsea series, in which a school of wizardry also appears, and the Chrestomanci books by Jones.

[247] Paintings move and talk; books bite readers; letters shout messages; and maps show live journeys,[246][248] making the wizarding world "both exotic and cosily familiar" according to the scholar Catherine Butler.

[276] Harry Potter's popularity has been attributed to factors including the nostalgia evoked by the boarding-school story, the endearing nature of Rowling's characters, and the accessibility of her books to a variety of readers.

[243][287] Conversely, the scholar Philip Nel rejects such critiques as "snobbery" that reacts to the novels' popularity,[281] whereas Mary Pharr argues that Harry Potter's conventionalism is the point: by amalgamating literary forms familiar to her readers, Rowling invites them to "ponder their own ideas".

[288] Other critics who see artistic merit in Rowling's writing include Marina Warner, who views Harry Potter as part of an "alternative genealogy" of English literature that she traces from Edmund Spenser to Christina Rossetti.

[211][212] Fans have been more critical of the play's use of time travel, changes to characters' personalities, and perceived queerbaiting in Albus and Scorpius's relationship, leading some to question its connection to the Harry Potter canon.

[306] Discussing the slavery of house-elves within Harry Potter, scholars such as Brycchan Carey have praised the books' abolitionist sentiments, viewing Hermione's Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare as a model for younger readers' political engagement.

[308] Pharr terms the house-elves a disharmonious element in the series, writing that Rowling leaves their fate hanging;[309] at the end of Deathly Hallows, the elves remain enslaved and cheerful.

[321] The author and scholar Amanda Cockrell suggests that Harry Potter's popularity, and recent preoccupation with fantasy and the occult among Christian fundamentalists, explains why the series received particular opposition.

[326] The scholar Em McAvan writes that evangelical objections to Harry Potter are superficial, based on the presence of magic in the books: they do not attempt to understand the moral messages in the series.

[331][339] Older works of children's fantasy, including Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series and Diane Duane's Young Wizards, were reprinted and rose in popularity; some authors re-established their careers.

[345] Some critics view Harry Potter's rise, along with the concurrent success of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, as part of a broader shift in reading tastes: a rejection of literary fiction in favour of plot and adventure.

[376] Later in 2022, during her advocacy against the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill,[377] Rowling stated she had founded and would fund Beira's Place, a women-only rape help centre that provides free support services to survivors of sexual violence.

[381] During the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, accompanied by an inflatable representation of Lord Voldemort,[382] she read from Peter Pan as part of a tribute to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

"[90] In her "Single mother's manifesto" published in The Times in 2010, Rowling criticised the prime minister David Cameron's plan to offer married couples an annual tax credit.

[436] Rowling's views have fuelled debates on freedom of speech[437][438] and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary,[439] music,[414] theme park, and video gaming sectors.

[66][418] In an essay posted on her website in June 2020 – which left transgender people feeling betrayed[434][445] – Rowling said her views on women's rights sprang from her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

[452][453][454] Writing of her own experiences with misogyny,[455] she wondered if the "allure of escaping womanhood" would have led her to transition if she had been born later, and she said that trans activism was "seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class".

[462] Rowling was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours for services to children's literature,[463] and three years later received Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for Concord.

[465][466] The next year, she was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy,[465] and leading magazine editors named her the "Most Influential Woman in the UK" in 2010.