A deformable mirror can be used to correct wavefront errors in an astronomical telescope.
Illustration
of a (simplified) adaptive optics system. The light first hits a
tip–tilt (TT) mirror and then a deformable mirror (DM) which corrects
the wavefront. Part of the light is tapped off by a beamsplitter (BS) to
the wavefront sensor and the control hardware which sends updated
signals to the DM and TT mirrors.
The
wavefront of an aberrated image (left) can be measured using a
wavefront sensor (center) and then corrected for using a deformable
mirror (right)
Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of incoming wavefront distortions by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion. It is used in astronomicaltelescopes and laser communication systems to remove the effects of atmospheric distortion, in microscopy, optical fabrication and in retinal imaging systems to reduce optical aberrations. Adaptive optics works by measuring the distortions in a wavefront and compensating for them with a device that corrects those errors such as a deformable mirror or a liquid crystal array.
Adaptive optics should not be confused with active optics, which works on a longer timescale to correct the primary mirror geometry.
Adaptive optics was first envisioned by Horace W. Babcock in 1953, and was also considered in science fiction, as in Poul Anderson's novelTau Zero
(1970), but it did not come into common usage until advances in
computer technology during the 1990s made the technique practical.
Some of the initial development work on adaptive optics was done by the US military during the Cold War and was intended for use in tracking Soviet satellites.
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirrors and magnetics concept deformable mirrors
are currently the most widely used technology in wavefront shaping
applications for adaptive optics given their versatility, stroke,
maturity of technology and the high resolution wavefront correction that
they afford.
Tip–tilt correction
The simplest form of adaptive optics is tip–tilt correction, which corresponds to correction of the tilts
of the wavefront in two dimensions (equivalent to correction of the
position offsets for the image). This is performed using a rapidly
moving tip–tilt mirror that makes small rotations around two of its
axes. A significant fraction of the aberration introduced by the atmosphere can be removed in this way.
Tip–tilt mirrors are effectively segmented mirrors
having only one segment which can tip and tilt, rather than having an
array of multiple segments that can tip and tilt independently. Due to
the relative simplicity of such mirrors and having a large stroke,
meaning they have large correcting power, most AO systems use these,
first, to correct low order aberrations. Higher order aberrations may
then be corrected with deformable mirrors.
Negative
images of a star through a telescope. The left-hand panel shows the
slow-motion movie of a star when the adaptive optics system is switched
off. The right-hand panel shows the slow motion movie of the same star
when the AO system is switched on.
When light from a star or another astronomical object enters the Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric turbulence
(introduced, for example, by different temperature layers and different
wind speeds interacting) can distort and move the image in various
ways. Visual images produced by any telescope larger than approximately 20 centimeters are blurred by these distortions.
Wavefront sensing and correction
An adaptive optics system tries to correct these distortions, using a wavefront sensor
which takes some of the astronomical light, a deformable mirror that
lies in the optical path, and a computer that receives input from the
detector. The wavefront sensor measures the distortions the atmosphere has introduced on the timescale of a few milliseconds; the computer calculates the optimal mirror shape to correct the distortions and the surface of the deformable mirror is reshaped accordingly. For example, an 8–10 m telescope (like the VLT or Keck) can produce AO-corrected images with an angular resolution of 30–60 milliarcsecond (mas) resolution at infrared wavelengths, while the resolution without correction is of the order of 1 arcsecond.
In order to perform adaptive optics correction, the shape of the
incoming wavefronts must be measured as a function of position in the
telescope aperture plane. Typically the circular telescope aperture is
split up into an array of pixels in a wavefront sensor, either using an array of small lenslets (a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor),
or using a curvature or pyramid sensor which operates on images of the
telescope aperture. The mean wavefront perturbation in each pixel is
calculated. This pixelated map of the wavefronts is fed into the
deformable mirror and used to correct the wavefront errors introduced by
the atmosphere. It is not necessary for the shape or size of the astronomical object to be known – even Solar System
objects which are not point-like can be used in a Shack–Hartmann
wavefront sensor, and time-varying structure on the surface of the Sun
is commonly used for adaptive optics at solar telescopes. The deformable
mirror corrects incoming light so that the images appear sharp.
Using guide stars
Natural guide stars
Because
a science target is often too faint to be used as a reference star for
measuring the shape of the optical wavefronts, a nearby brighter guide star
can be used instead. The light from the science target has passed
through approximately the same atmospheric turbulence as the reference
star's light and so its image is also corrected, although generally to a
lower accuracy.
A laser beam directed toward the centre of the Milky Way. This laser beam can then be used as a guide star for the AO.
The necessity of a reference star means that an adaptive optics
system cannot work everywhere on the sky, but only where a guide star of
sufficient luminosity (for current systems, about magnitude
12–15) can be found very near to the object of the observation. This
severely limits the application of the technique for astronomical
observations. Another major limitation is the small field of view over
which the adaptive optics correction is good. As the angular distance
from the guide star increases, the image quality degrades. A technique
known as "multiconjugate adaptive optics" uses several deformable
mirrors to achieve a greater field of view.
Artificial guide stars
An alternative is the use of a laser beam to generate a reference light source (a laser guide star, LGS) in the atmosphere. There are two kinds of LGSs: Rayleigh guide stars and sodium guide stars. Rayleigh guide stars work by propagating a laser, usually at near ultraviolet
wavelengths, and detecting the backscatter from air at altitudes
between 15–25 km (49,000–82,000 ft). Sodium guide stars use laser light
at 589 nm to resonantly excite sodium atoms higher in the mesosphere and thermosphere, which then appear to "glow". The LGS can then be used as a wavefront reference
in the same way as a natural guide star – except that (much fainter)
natural reference stars are still required for image position (tip/tilt)
information. The lasers are often pulsed, with measurement of the atmosphere being limited to a window occurring a few microseconds
after the pulse has been launched. This allows the system to ignore
most scattered light at ground level; only light which has travelled for
several microseconds high up into the atmosphere and back is actually
detected.
Ocular aberrations are distortions in the wavefront passing through the pupil of the eye. These optical aberrations diminish the quality of the image formed on the retina, sometimes necessitating the wearing of spectacles or contact lenses.
In the case of retinal imaging, light passing out of the eye carries
similar wavefront distortions, leading to an inability to resolve the
microscopic structure (cells and capillaries) of the retina. Spectacles
and contact lenses correct "low-order aberrations", such as defocus and
astigmatism, which tend to be stable in humans for long periods of time
(months or years). While correction of these is sufficient for normal
visual functioning, it is generally insufficient to achieve microscopic
resolution. Additionally, "high-order aberrations", such as coma, spherical aberration,
and trefoil, must also be corrected in order to achieve microscopic
resolution. High-order aberrations, unlike low-order, are not stable
over time, and may change over time scales of 0.1s to 0.01s. The
correction of these aberrations requires continuous, high-frequency
measurement and compensation.
Measurement of ocular aberrations
Ocular aberrations are generally measured using a wavefront sensor, and the most commonly used type of wavefront sensor is the Shack–Hartmann.
Ocular aberrations are caused by spatial phase nonuniformities in the
wavefront exiting the eye. In a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, these
are measured by placing a two-dimensional array of small lenses
(lenslets) in a pupil plane conjugate to the eye's pupil, and a CCD chip
at the back focal plane of the lenslets. The lenslets cause spots to be
focused onto the CCD chip, and the positions of these spots are
calculated using a centroiding algorithm. The positions of these spots
are compared with the positions of reference spots, and the
displacements between the two are used to determine the local curvature
of the wavefront allowing one to numerically reconstruct the wavefront
information—an estimate of the phase nonuniformities causing aberration.
Correction of ocular aberrations
Once
the local phase errors in the wavefront are known, they can be
corrected by placing a phase modulator such as a deformable mirror at
yet another plane in the system conjugate to the eye's pupil. The phase
errors can be used to reconstruct the wavefront, which can then be used
to control the deformable mirror. Alternatively, the local phase errors
can be used directly to calculate the deformable mirror instructions.
Open loop vs. closed loop operation
If
the wavefront error is measured before it has been corrected by the
wavefront corrector, then operation is said to be "open loop".
If the wavefront error is measured after it has been corrected by the
wavefront corrector, then operation is said to be "closed loop". In the
latter case then the wavefront errors measured will be small, and errors
in the measurement and correction are more likely to be removed. Closed
loop correction is the norm.
Applications
Adaptive
optics was first applied to flood-illumination retinal imaging to
produce images of single cones in the living human eye. It has also been
used in conjunction with scanning laser ophthalmoscopy
to produce (also in living human eyes) the first images of retinal
microvasculature and associated blood flow and retinal pigment
epithelium cells in addition to single cones. Combined with optical coherence tomography, adaptive optics has allowed the first three-dimensional images of living cone photoreceptors to be collected.
In microscopy
In microscopy, adaptive optics is used to correct for sample-induced aberrations.
The required wavefront correction is either measured directly using
wavefront sensor or estimated by using sensorless AO techniques.
Other uses
GRAAL is a ground layer adaptive optics instrument assisted by lasers.
Besides its use for improving nighttime astronomical imaging and
retinal imaging, adaptive optics technology has also been used in other
settings. Adaptive optics is used for solar astronomy at observatories
such as the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope and Big Bear Solar Observatory. It is also expected to play a military role by allowing ground-based and airborne laser weapons to reach and destroy targets at a distance including satellites in orbit. The Missile Defense AgencyAirborne Laser program is the principal example of this.
Adaptive optics has been used to enhance the performance of classical and quantum free-space optical communication systems, and to control the spatial output of optical fibers.
Medical applications include imaging of the retina, where it has been combined with optical coherence tomography.
Also the development of Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope
(AOSLO) has enabled correcting for the aberrations of the wavefront that
is reflected from the human retina and to take diffraction limited
images of the human rods and cones. Development of an Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM) was announced by Thorlabs in April 2007. Adaptive and active optics are also being developed for use in glasses to achieve better than 20/20 vision, initially for military applications.
After propagation of a wavefront, parts of it may overlap leading
to interference and preventing adaptive optics from correcting it.
Propagation of a curved wavefront always leads to amplitude variation.
This needs to be considered if a good beam profile is to be achieved in
laser applications. In material processing using lasers, adjustments can
be made on the fly to allow for variation of focus-depth during
piercing for changes in focal length across the working surface. Beam
width can also be adjusted to switch between piercing and cutting mode.
This eliminates the need for optic of the laser head to be switched,
cutting down on overall processing time for more dynamic modifications.
Adaptive optics, especially wavefront-coding spatial light modulators, are frequently used in optical trapping applications to multiplex and dynamically reconfigure laser foci that are used to micro-manipulate biological specimens.
Joanne RowlingCH,OBE,HonFRSE,FRCPE,FRSL (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), better known by her pen nameJ. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, film producer, television producer, and screenwriter. She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history. The books are the basis of a popular film series, over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and was a producer on the final films. She also writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith.
Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London.
The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, 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. There were six sequels, of which the last was
released in 2007. Since then, Rowling has written several books for
adult readers: The Casual Vacancy (2012) and—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the crime fiction Cormoran Strike series. In 2020, her "political fairytale" for children, The Ickabog, was released in instalments in an online version.
Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life in which she progressed from living on benefits to being named the world's first billionaire author by Forbes. Rowling disputed the assertion, saying she was not a billionaire. Forbes reported that she lost her billionaire status after giving away much of her earnings to charity. Her UK sales total in excess of £238 million, making her the best-selling living author in Britain. The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £820 million, ranking her as the 196th richest person in the UK. Time named her a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. Rowling was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2017 Birthday Honours
for services to literature and philanthropy. In October 2010, she was
named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine
editors. Rowling has supported multiple charities, including Comic Relief, One Parent Families, and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, as well as launching her own charity, Lumos. Since late 2019, Rowling has publicly voiced her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights. These views have been criticised as transphobic by many LGBT rights organisations and some feminists, but have received support from some other feminists.
Name
Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her
remarriage, her name was Joanne Rowling. Her publishers asked that she
use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating the possibility
of the target audience of young boys not wanting to read a book written
by a woman. As she had no middle name, she chose K (for Kathleen) as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother. She calls herself Jo. Following her remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry, she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling and her entry in Who's Who lists her name also as Joanne Kathleen Rowling.
Life and career
Birth and family
Rowling's parents met on a train from King's Cross Station. After Rowling used King's Cross as a gateway into the Wizarding World it became a popular tourist spot.
Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, to Anne (née Volant), a science technician, and Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. One of Rowling's maternal great-grandfathers, Dugald Campbell, was a Scottish man from Lamlash. Her mother's French paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the War Cross for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during World War I. Rowling originally believed Volant had won the Legion of Honour
during the war, as she said when she received it herself in 2009. She
later discovered the truth when featured in an episode of the UK
genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?
in which she found out it was a different Louis Volant who won the
Legion of Honour. When she heard her grandfather's story of bravery and
discovered that the War Cross was for "ordinary" soldiers like her
grandfather, who had been a waiter, she stated the War Cross was
"better" to her than the Legion of Honour.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village of Winterbourne when Rowling was four. As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories which she frequently read to her sister. Aged nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling read all of her books.
Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms. Rowling later said that she based the character of Hermione Granger on herself when she was eleven. Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth, owned a turquoise Ford Anglia which she says inspired a flying version that appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Like many teenagers, she became interested in rock music, listening to the Clash, the Smiths, and Siouxsie Sioux,
adopting the look of the latter with back-combed hair and black
eyeliner, a look that she still sported when beginning university.
Education
As a child, Rowling attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionistWilliam Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department.
Steve Eddy, her first secondary school English teacher, remembers her
as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and
quite good at English". Rowling took A-levels in English, French and German, achieving two As and a B and was head girl.
Rowling earned a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter.
Martin Sorrell, a French professor at Exeter, remembers "a quietly
competent student, with a denim jacket and dark hair, who, in academic
terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary". Rowling recalls doing little work, preferring to read Dickens and Tolkien. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986.
In 1988, Rowling wrote a short essay about her time studying Classics
titled "What was the Name of that Nymph Again? or Greek and Roman
Studies Recalled"; it was published by the University of Exeter's
journal Pegasus.
Inspiration and mother's death
Rowling worked as a researcher and bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International, then moved with her boyfriend to Manchester where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce.
In 1990, she was on a four-hour delayed train trip from Manchester to
London when the idea "came fully formed" into her mind for a story of a
young boy attending a school of wizardry. When she reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.
In December 1990, Rowling's mother Anne died after suffering from multiple sclerosis for ten years. Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it. Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing, and she channelled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry's grief in greater detail in the first book.
Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood
Rowling moved to Porto to teach. In 1993, she returned to the UK accompanied by her daughter and three completed chapters of Harry Potter after her marriage had deteriorated.
An advertisement in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language. She taught at night and began writing in the day while listening to Tchaikovsky'sViolin Concerto.
After 18 months in Porto, she met Portuguese television journalist
Jorge Arantes in a bar, and found that they shared an interest in Jane Austen. They married on 16 October 1992, and daughter Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford) was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. She had previously suffered a miscarriage. The couple separated on 17 November 1993. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, which Rowling later confirmed; Arantes stated in an article for The Sun in June 2020 that he had slapped her and did not regret it. United Kingdom domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs formally advised The Sun that it was unacceptable "to repeat and magnify the voice of someone who openly admits to violence against a partner". In December 1993, with three chapters of Harry Potter in her suitcase, Rowling and her daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near Rowling's sister.
Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure.
Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child,
but she described her failure as "liberating" and allowing her to focus
on writing. During this period, she was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. Her depression inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
Rowling signed up for welfare benefits, describing her economic status
as being "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being
homeless."
Rowling was left in despair after her estranged husband arrived in Scotland, seeking both her and their daughter. She obtained an Order of Restraint, and Arantes returned to Portugal, with Rowling filing for divorce in August 1994. She began a teacher training course in August 1995 at the Moray House School of Education at Edinburgh University, after completing her first novel while living on state benefits. She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café (owned by her brother-in-law) and the Elephant House, wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. In a 2001 BBC
interview, Rowling denied the rumour that she wrote in local cafés to
escape from her unheated flat, pointing out that it had heating. She
stated that she wrote in cafés because coffee was available without her
breaking the flow of writing, and that taking her baby out for a walk
helped her to fall asleep.
The Elephant House, one of the cafés in Edinburgh in which Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which was typed on an old manual typewriter.
Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, a reader who had been
asked to review the book's first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agency
agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was
submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the
manuscript. A year later, she was finally given the green light (and a £1,500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London.
The decision to publish Rowling's book owes much to Alice Newton, the
eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he
advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making
money in children's books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8,000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone
with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed
to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and
£25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February 1998, the novel won the British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year
and, later, the Children's Book Award. In early 1998, an auction was
held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was
won by Scholastic Inc., for US$105,000. Rowling said that she "nearly died" when she heard the news. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher's Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a change Rowling says she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time. Rowling moved from her flat with the money from the Scholastic sale, into 19 Hazelbank Terrace in Edinburgh.
Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and again Rowling won the Smarties Prize. In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000 and
broke sales records in both countries, with 372,775 copies of the book
sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all records.
Rowling said that she had had a crisis while writing the novel and had
to rewrite one chapter many times to fix a problem with the plot. Rowling was named Author of the Year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she later denied.
Rowling later said that writing the book was a chore, that it could
have been shorter, and that she ran out of time and energy as she tried
to finish it.
The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was announced on 21 December 2006 as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In February 2007, it was reported that Rowling wrote on a bust in her hotel room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh that she had finished the seventh book in that room on 11 January 2007. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007 (0:01 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. The book's last chapter was one of the earliest things she wrote in the entire series.
Potter queue
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated US$15 billion, and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for
sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children
were thought to be abandoning books for computers, television and video
games, although it is reported that despite the huge uptake of the books, adolescent reading has continued to decline.
Warner Bros. took considerable notice of Rowling's desires when
drafting her contract. One of her principal stipulations was the films
be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has been generally adhered to. Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the winner in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate US$18 million to the American charity Reading Is Fundamental, as well as several community charity programmes.
Steve Kloves wrote the screenplays for all but the fifth film;
Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts
did not contradict future books in the series. She told Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters before they were revealed in the books. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter)
asked her if Harry died at any point in the series; Rowling answered
him by saying, "You have a death scene", thereby not explicitly
answering the question. Director Steven Spielberg
was approached to direct the first film, but dropped out. The press has
repeatedly claimed that Rowling played a role in his departure, but
Rowling stated that she had no say in who directed the films and would
not have vetoed Spielberg. Rowling's first choice for the director had been Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, but Warner Bros. wanted a family-friendly film and chose Columbus.
Rowling had gained some creative control over the films, reviewing all the scripts as well as acting as a producer on the final two-part instalment, Deathly Hallows.
In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a US-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £820 million, ranking her as the 196th richest person in the UK. After spending eight years on the list, in 2012 Forbes
removed Rowling from their rich list, claiming that her US$160 million
in charitable donations and the high tax rate in the UK meant she was no
longer a billionaire. In February 2013, she was assessed as the 13th most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
Rowling has consistently been ranked among the highest earning authors in the world. She was named the world's highest paid author in 2017 and 2019 by Forbes with net earnings of £72 million ($95 million) and $92 million respectively.
Remarriage and family
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Murray (born 30 June 1971), a Scottish doctor, in a private ceremony at her home, Killiechassie House, in Scotland. Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24 March 2003. Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she ceased working on the novel to care for David in his early infancy.
Rowling is a friend of Sarah Brown, wife of former prime minister Gordon Brown,
whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project. When Sarah
Brown's son Fraser was born in 2003, Rowling was one of the first to
visit her in hospital. Rowling's youngest child, daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was born on 23 January 2005.
In October 2012, a New Yorker magazine article stated that the Rowling family lived in a seventeenth-century Edinburgh house, concealed at the front by tall conifer hedges. Prior to October 2012, Rowling lived near the author Ian Rankin, who later said she was quiet and introspective, and that she seemed in her element with children. As of June 2014, the family resides in Scotland.
The Casual Vacancy
In July 2011, Rowling parted company with her agent, Christopher
Little, moving to a new agency founded by one of his staff, Neil Blair.
On 23 February 2012, his agency, the Blair Partnership, announced on
its website that Rowling was set to publish a new book targeted at
adults. In a press release, Rowling said that her new book would be
quite different from Harry Potter. In April 2012, Little, Brown and
Company announced that the book was titled The Casual Vacancy and would be released on 27 September 2012. Rowling gave several interviews and made appearances to promote The Casual Vacancy, including at the London Southbank Centre, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Charlie Rose and the Lennoxlove Book Festival. In its first three weeks of release, The Casual Vacancy sold over 1 million copies worldwide.
On 3 December 2012, it was announced that the BBC would be adapting The Casual Vacancy into a television drama miniseries.
Rowling's agent, Neil Blair, acted as producer through his independent
production company and with Rick Senat serving as executive producer.
Rowling collaborated on the adaptation, serving as an executive producer
for the series. The series aired in three parts from 15 February to 1
March 2015.
In 2007, during the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ian Rankin claimed that his wife spotted Rowling "scribbling away" at a detective novel in a café. Rankin later retracted the story, claiming it was a joke, but the rumour persisted, with a report in 2012 in The Guardian speculating that Rowling's next book would be a crime novel. In an interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling had claimed that she would much prefer to write any subsequent books under a pseudonym, but had previously conceded to Jeremy Paxman in 2003 that if she did, the press would probably "find out in seconds".
In April 2013, Little Brown published The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported début novel of author Robert Galbraith, whom the publisher described as "a former plainclothes Royal Military Police investigator who had left in 2003 to work in the civilian security industry". The novel, a detective story in which private investigator
Cormoran Strike unravels the supposed suicide of a supermodel, sold
1,500 copies in hardback (although the matter was not resolved as of
21 July 2013; later reports stated that this number is the number of
copies that were printed for the first run, while the sales total was
closer to 500) and received acclaim from other crime writers and critics—a Publishers Weekly review called the book a "stellar debut", while the Library Journal's mystery section pronounced the novel "the debut of the month".
India Knight, a novelist and columnist for The Sunday Times, tweeted on 9 July 2013 that she had been reading The Cuckoo's Calling and thought it was good for a début novel. In response, a tweeter called Jude Callegari said that the author was Rowling. Knight queried this but got no further reply. Knight notified Richard Brooks, arts editor of The Sunday Times, who began his own investigation. After discovering that Rowling and Galbraith had the same agent and editor, he sent the books for linguistic analysis which found similarities, and subsequently contacted Rowling's agent who confirmed it was Rowling's pseudonym. Within days of Rowling being revealed as the author, sales of the book rose by 4,000%, and Little Brown printed another 140,000 copies to meet the increase in demand. As of 18 July 2013,
a signed copy of the first edition sold for US$4,453 (£2,950), while an
unsold signed first-edition copy was being offered for $6,188 (£3,950).
Rowling said that she had enjoyed working under a pseudonym. On her Robert Galbraith website, Rowling explained that she took the name from one of her personal heroes, Robert F. Kennedy, and a childhood fantasy name she had invented for herself, Ella Galbraith. Commenting on the choice of the name in an interview with Graham Norton,
she remarked that, "when I was unmasked – when I was outed – people
analysed the name as “Robert means a bright shining fame and Galbraith
means stranger” and I was thinking “really? I had no idea!” But, you
know, things get over analysed sometimes."
Soon after the revelation, Brooks pondered whether Jude Callegari
could have been Rowling as part of wider speculation that the entire
affair had been a publicity stunt. Some also observed that many of the
writers who had initially praised the book, such as Alex Gray or Val McDermid, were within Rowling's circle of acquaintances; both vociferously denied any foreknowledge of Rowling's authorship.
Judith "Jude" Callegari was the best friend of the wife of Chris
Gossage, a partner within Russells Solicitors, Rowling's legal
representatives. Rowling released a statement saying she was disappointed and angry;
Russells apologised for the leak, confirming it was not part of a
marketing stunt and that "the disclosure was made in confidence to
someone he trusted implicitly". Russells made a donation to the Soldiers' Charity on Rowling's behalf and reimbursed her for her legal fees.
On 26 November 2013, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) issued
Gossage a written rebuke and £1,000 fine for breaching privacy rules.
On 17 February 2014, Rowling announced that the second Cormoran Strike novel, named The Silkworm,
would be released in June 2014. It sees Strike investigating the
disappearance of a writer hated by many of his old friends for insulting
them in his new novel.
In 2015, Rowling stated on Galbraith's website that the third
Cormoran Strike novel would include "an insane amount of planning, the
most I have done for any book I have written so far. I have colour-coded
spreadsheets so I can keep a track of where I am going." On 24 April 2015, Rowling announced that work on the third book was completed. Titled Career of Evil, it was released on 20 October 2015 in the United States, and on 22 October 2015 in the United Kingdom.
In 2017, the BBC released a Cormoran Strike television series, starring Tom Burke as Cormoran Strike.The series was subsequently picked up by HBO for distribution in the United States and Canada.
In March 2017, Rowling revealed the fourth novel's title via
Twitter in a game of "Hangman" with her followers. After many failed
attempts, followers finally guessed correctly. Rowling confirmed that
the next novel's title is Lethal White.
While intended for a 2017 release, Rowling tweeted the book was taking
longer than expected and would be the longest book in the series thus
far. The book was released 18 September 2018. The fifth novel in the series, titled Troubled Blood, was published in September 2020. In May 2021, Troubled Blood won the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Rowling has said it is unlikely she will write any more books in the Harry Potter series. In October 2007, she stated that her future work was unlikely to be in the fantasy genre. On 1 October 2010, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling stated a new book on the saga might happen.
In 2007, Rowling stated that she planned to write an encyclopaedia of Harry Potter's wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. During a news conference at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre
in 2007, Rowling, when asked how the encyclopaedia was coming along,
said, "It's not coming along, and I haven't started writing it. I never
said it was the next thing I'd do." At the end of 2007, Rowling said that the encyclopaedia could take up to ten years to complete.
In June 2011, Rowling announced that future Harry Potter projects, and all electronic downloads, would be concentrated in a new website, called Pottermore. The site includes 18,000 words of information on characters, places and objects in the Harry Potter universe.
In October 2015, Rowling announced via Pottermore that a two-part play she had co-authored with playwrights Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was the "eighth Harry Potter story" and that it would focus on the life of Harry Potter's youngest son Albus after the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. On 28 October 2015, the first round of tickets went on sale and sold out in several hours.
The Ickabog
Starting on 26 May 2020 and running until 10 July 2020, Rowling published a new children's story online. The Ickabog was first mooted as a "political fairytale" for children in a 2007 Time magazine interview. Rowling shelved the story and decided to publish it for children as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A print edition was released on 10 November 2020 and contains illustrations selected from entries to a competition running concurrently with the online publication. Rowling stated that all royalties from the book would be donated to charities helping groups strongly impacted by COVID-19.
The Christmas Pig
On 13 April 2021 it was announced that Rowling would be publishing a new children's novel, entitled The Christmas Pig, due to be released in October 2021. The story is unconnected to any of Rowling's previous works.
Philanthropy
In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses
its annual budget of £5.1 million to combat poverty and social
inequality. The fund also gives to organisations that aid children,
one-parent families, and multiple sclerosis research.
Anti-poverty and children's welfare
Rowling, once a single parent, is now president of the charity Gingerbread (originally One Parent Families), having become their first Ambassador in 2000. Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families.
In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three best-selling British authors—cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling—to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication. Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts
library. Since going on sale in March 2001, the books have raised
£15.7 million for the fund. The £10.8 million they have raised outside
the UK have been channelled into a newly created International Fund for
Children and Young People in Crisis. In 2002, Rowling contributed a foreword to Magic,
an anthology of fiction published by Bloomsbury Publishing, helping to
raise money for the National Council for One Parent Families.
In 2005, Rowling and MEPEmma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level Group (now Lumos). In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in mental institutions for children. To further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for £1.95 million by online bookseller Amazon.com on 13 December 2007, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction. Rowling gave away the remaining six copies to those who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books. In 2008, Rowling agreed to publish the book with the proceeds going to Lumos. On 1 June 2010 (International Children's Day), Lumos launched an annual initiative—Light a Birthday Candle for Lumos. In November 2013, Rowling handed over all earnings from the sale of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, totalling nearly £19 million.
Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis,
from which her mother suffered before her death in 1990. In 2006,
Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new
Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, later named the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. In 2010, she donated another £10 million to the centre, and in 2019 a further £15 million.
For unknown reasons, Scotland, Rowling's country of adoption, has the
highest rate of multiple sclerosis in the world. In 2003, Rowling took
part in a campaign to establish a national standard of care for MS
sufferers. In April 2009, she announced that she was withdrawing her support for Multiple Sclerosis Society
Scotland, citing her inability to resolve an ongoing feud between the
organisation's northern and southern branches that had sapped morale and
led to several resignations.
COVID-19
In May 2020, Rowling announced the publication of children's novel The Ickabog,
with all author royalties being donated to charities supporting those
affected by COVID-19. Rowling organised a drawing competition via
Twitter, where children from all over the world could draw and submit
illustrations for the book as they were reading it in instalments.
These illustrations were then published in various editions of the book
once it was fully released. According to Rowling in a 2020 BBC Radio 2
interview with Graham Norton, there were over 60,000 entries to the competition.
Through the Volant Charitable Trust, Rowling donated six-figure sums to both Khalsa Aid and the British Asian Trust to support their covid-relief work in India, in May 2021.
On 1 and 2 August 2006, she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall
in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven
Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable
and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières. In May 2007, Rowling pledged a donation reported as over £250,000 to a reward fund started by the tabloid News of the World for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal. Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan,
wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the
proceeds of which were donated to the Jennifer Brown Research
Laboratory. After her exposure as the true author of The Cuckoo's Calling led to a massive increase in sales, Rowling announced she would donate all her royalties to the Army Benevolent Fund, claiming she had always intended to but never expected the book to be a best-seller.
Rowling is a member of both English PEN and Scottish PEN. She was
one of 50 authors to contribute to First Editions, Second Thoughts, a
charity auction for English PEN. Each author hand annotated a
first-edition copy of one of their books, in Rowling's case, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The book was the highest-selling lot of the event and fetched £150,000 ($228,600).
Rowling is a supporter of the Shannon Trust,
which runs the Toe by Toe Reading Plan and the Shannon Reading Plan in
prisons across Britain, helping and giving tutoring to prisoners who
cannot read.
Rowling has named civil rights activist Jessica Mitford
as her greatest influence. She said "Jessica Mitford has been my
heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable
great-aunt discussing how Mitford had run away at the age of 19 to fight
with the Reds in the Spanish Civil War",
and claims what inspired her about Mitford was that she was "incurably
and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent,
she liked nothing better than a good fight, preferably against a pompous
and hypocritical target". Rowling has described Jane Austen as her favourite author, calling Emma her favourite book in O, The Oprah Magazine. As a child, Rowling has said her early influences included The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, and Manxmouse by Paul Gallico.
To many, Rowling is known for her centre-left political views. In September 2008, on the eve of the Labour Party Conference, Rowling announced that she had donated £1 million to the Labour Party, and publicly endorsed Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown over Conservative challenger David Cameron, praising Labour's policies on child poverty. Rowling is a close friend of Sarah Brown, wife of Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project for One Parent Families.
Rowling commented on American politics when she discussed the 2008 United States presidential election with the Spanish-language newspaper El País in February 2008, stating that the election would have a profound effect on the rest of the world. She also said that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be "extraordinary" in the White House. In the same interview, Rowling identified Robert F. Kennedy as her hero.
In April 2010, an article by Rowling was published in The Times,
in which she criticised
then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's plan to encourage
married couples to stay together by offering them a £150 annual tax
credit: "Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could
say 'it's not the money, it's the message'. When your flat has been
broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When
you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is
hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating
shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money."
Due to her residency in Scotland, Rowling was eligible to vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, during the run-up to which she campaigned for the "No" vote. She donated £1 million to the Better Together anti-independence campaign run by her former neighbour Alistair Darling,
the largest donation it had received at the time. In a blog post,
Rowling explained that an open letter from Scottish medical
professionals raised problems with First Minister Alex Salmond's plans for a common research funding. Rowling compared some Scottish Nationalists with the Death Eaters, characters from Harry Potter who are scornful of those without pure blood.
On 22 October 2015, a letter was published in The Guardian
signed by Rowling (along with over 150 other figures from arts and
politics) opposing the cultural boycott of Israel, and announcing the
creation of a network for dialogue, called Culture for Coexistence. Rowling later explained her position in greater detail, stating that although she opposed most of Benjamin Netanyahu's
actions, she did not believe the cultural boycott would bring about the
removal of Israel's leader or the improvement of the situation in
Israel and Palestine.
In June 2016, Rowling campaigned for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union in the run-up to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum,
stating on her website that, "I'm the mongrel product of this European
continent and I'm an internationalist. I was raised by a Francophile
mother whose family was proud of their part-French heritage ... My
values are not contained or proscribed by borders. The absence of a visa
when I cross the channel has symbolic value to me. I might not be in my
house, but I'm still in my hometown."
Rowling expressed concern that "racists and bigots" were directing
parts of the Leave campaign. In a blog post, she added: "How can a
retreat into selfish and insecure individualism be the right response
when Europe faces genuine threats, when the bonds that tie us are so
powerful, when we have come so far together? How can we hope to conquer
the enormous challenges of terrorism and climate change without
cooperation and collaboration?"
Some religious people, figures and organisations have, over the
years, objected to and decried Rowling's books for the perceived
promotion of witchcraft. Many objections have come from Christians in
particular, though Rowling herself has stated that she identifies as a
Christian, stating that "I believe in God, not magic." Early on in writing the Harry Potter
series of books and in response to criticism, Rowling did not disclose
her religious beliefs, feeling that if readers knew of her religious
views, they would be able to predict plot lines of characters in her
books.
In 2007, Rowling stated that she was the only person in her
family who attended church regularly, and that she was an adherent of
the Church of England.
As a student, she had previously been annoyed at the "smugness of
religious people", and had attended less often. Later, she began
attending a Church of Scotland congregation around the time she was writing Harry Potter. Her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.
In a 2006 interview with Tatler, Rowling noted that, "like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me." She has said that she has struggled with doubt, that she believes in an afterlife, and that her faith plays a part in her books. In a 2012 radio interview, Rowling stated that she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.
In 2015, following the referendum on same-sex marriage in Ireland, Rowling joked that if Ireland legalised same-sex marriage, Dumbledore and Gandalf could get married there. The Westboro Baptist Church,
in response, stated that if the two got married, they would picket.
Rowling responded by saying, "Alas, the sheer awesomeness of such a
union in such a place would blow your tiny bigoted minds out of your
thick sloping skulls."
Press
Rowling has stated that she has a difficult relationship with the
press, admitting at one point to being "thin-skinned" and disliking the
fickle nature of reporting, though she has disputed that she is a
recluse who hates to be interviewed. By 2011, Rowling had taken more than 50 actions against the press. In 2001, the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Rowling over a series of unauthorised photographs of her with her daughter on the beach in Mauritius published in OK! magazine.
In 2007, Rowling's young son, David, assisted by Rowling and her
husband, lost a court fight to ban publication of a photograph of David.
The photo, which was taken by a photographer using a long-range lens,
was then published in a Sunday Express article featuring Rowling's family life and motherhood. The judgement was overturned in David's favour in May 2008.
Rowling has expressed her particular dislike of the British tabloid Daily Mail, which has conducted several interviews with her estranged ex-husband. As one journalist noted, "Harry's Uncle Vernon
is a grotesque philistine of violent tendencies and remarkably little
brain. It is not difficult to guess which newspaper Rowling gives him to
read [in Goblet of Fire]." In 2014, she successfully sued the Mail for libel over an article about her time as a single mother. Some have speculated that Rowling's fraught relationship with the press was the inspiration behind the character Rita Skeeter, a gossipy celebrity journalist who first appears in Goblet of Fire, but Rowling said in 2000 that the character's development predates her rise to fame.
In September 2011, Rowling was named as a "core participant" in the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press, as one of dozens of celebrities who may have been the victim of phone hacking.
On 24 November 2011, Rowling gave evidence before the inquiry; although
she was not suspected to have been the victim of phone hacking,
her testimony included accounts of photographers camping on her
doorstep, her fiancé being duped into giving his home address to a
journalist masquerading as a tax official, her chasing a journalist a week after giving birth, a journalist leaving a note inside her then-five-year-old daughter's schoolbag, and an attempt by The Sun to "blackmail" her into a photo opportunity in exchange for the return of a stolen manuscript. Rowling claimed she had to leave her former home in Merchiston because of press intrusion. In November 2012, Rowling wrote an op-ed for The Guardian
in response to David Cameron's decision not to implement the full
recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, stating that she felt "duped and
angry".
In 2014, Rowling reaffirmed her support for "Hacked Off",
a campaign supporting the self-regulation of the press, by co-signing a
declaration to "[safeguard] the press from political interference while
also giving vital protection to the vulnerable" with other British
celebrities.
On 6 June 2020, Rowling tweeted criticism of the phrase "people who menstruate",
and stated "If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is
erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex
removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives." Rowling's tweets were criticised by GLAAD, who called them "cruel" and "anti-trans". Some members of the cast of the Harry Potter film series criticised Rowling's views or spoke out in support of trans rights, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, and Katie Leung, as did Fantastic Beasts lead actor Eddie Redmayne and the fansites MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron. Actress Noma Dumezweni (who played Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) initially expressed support for Rowling but backtracked following backlash.
On 10 June 2020, Rowling published a 3,600-word essay on her website in response to the criticism.
Rowling again wrote that many women consider terms like "people who
menstruate" to be demeaning. She said that she was a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault,
and stated that "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and
changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman ... then
you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside", while
stating that most trans people were vulnerable and deserved protection. Following up into who is at risk in women's toilets, Reuters
stated that it was trans women who were more vulnerable, and that 200
municipalities which allowed trans people to use women's shelters
reported no rise in any violence as a result. Rowling's essay was criticised by, among others, the children's charity Mermaids (who support transgender and gender non-conforming children and their parents) and the feminist gender theoristJudith Butler. Rowling has been referred to as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) on multiple occasions, though she rejects the label. Rowling has received support from actors Robbie Coltrane and Brian Cox, and some feminists, such as activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and radical feministJulie Bindel. The essay was nominated by the BBC for their annual Russell Prize for best writing.
In August 2020, Rowling returned her Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award after Kerry Kennedy
released a statement expressing her "profound disappointment" in
Rowling's "attacks upon the transgender community", which Kennedy called
"inconsistent with the fundamental beliefs and values of RFK Human
Rights and ... a repudiation of my father's vision".
Rowling stated that she was "deeply saddened" by Kennedy's statement,
but maintained that no award would encourage her to "forfeit the right
to follow the dictates" of her conscience.
Rowling, her publishers, and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyright. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter
series has led to the appearance of a number of locally produced,
unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, sparking efforts to ban
or contain them.
Another area of legal dispute involves a series of injunctions
obtained by Rowling and her publishers to prohibit anyone from reading
her books before their official release date. The injunction drew fire from civil liberties and free speech campaigners and sparked debates over the "right to read".
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