Rags to Riches

Michael R. Valente
English 12
Blackburn
11/10/15

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Michael Valente
Blackburn
English 12
11/10/15
J.K. Rowling once said Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It
meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts
that is something on which to pride yourself... She was a very poor women before she began
writing about the adventures of Harry Potter. She once stated that she was as poor as it is
possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. But she was able to pour all her
hardships into something she really wanted to see finished. The beginning of her writing career

was a rough one but she was able to push through the rough parts and became the success she is
today. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, renamed Sorcerers Stone in the United States,
quickly became a huge success and JK Rowling left her day job to pursue writing full time. As
she released each book in the Harry Potter series she became more popular and moved farther
and farther from poverty, but her writing also matured as shown in, Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix, and she developed into one of the most successful writers of the past couple of
decades.
Rags to Riches is the headline to JK Rowlings life. She went from being a single mom
living off welfare to the first person ever to become a billionaire from writing in just over a
decade. (Bethune) Born in Bristol, England in 1965, her family later moved to a new home in the
Forest of Dean, just along the border of England and Wales. This sparked a love for the

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countryside in the nine year old Rowling. She was quiet as a child, had freckles, was short
sighted, and, in her own words, was rubbish at sports (JK Rowling). It is no surprise that in
school English was her favorite subject and during lunch she would often create serial stories to
entertain her friends. Rowlings parents pushed her to pursue a career as a secretary so she
studied French at Exeter University. Rowling later regretted this pursuit because she was too
unorganized to be a secretary. At the age of 26 she gave up this career and moved to Portugal to
teach English. She eventually found herself settling down in Edinburgh where she began raising
her child as a single mother (JK Rowling). By this point in her life she had been married, had
a child, and then got a divorced.ce. She was reduced to poverty and forced to live off of welfare
and loans from her friends but the dream of a world filled with wizards began to grow in her
mind. She became a French teacher while in Edinburg and she would often go to cafes and write
her first novel (Harry Potter Fascinates). Because she was so poor she could not afford a
babysitter so she would bring her daughter to the cafes and write while she napped. Harry Potter
and the Philosopher's Stone was finally completed and Rowling began to send it out to a variety
of different publishers. Twelve publishers declined to publish the book before it was finally
picked up by Bloomsbury Publishing on June twenty-sixth of 1997 (Harry Potter
Fascinates). It was said that the daughter of the head of Bloomsbury Publishing got her hands
on the book and stated that she loved it and wanted more (J.K. Rowling).
The story is of an orphan by the name of Harry Potter who is leading a miserable life with
the Dursley family, which includes his maternal aunt and uncle. Harry quickly realises that the
Dursleys do not want him there and they put his bedroom in a broom closet underneath the stairs.

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He is bullied at school, and mistreated by the Dursleys constantly. He is small, skinny, and
bespectacled, proving to be an unlikely hero. The only thing that is interesting about this
character is the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead (J.K. Rowling). At the age of eleven,
Harry receives a letter but the Dursleys keep it from him. After several letters, one finally gets
through to him and it tells him that he has been admitted to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry. This is the first time Harry learns that his parents were wizards and that he is a
wizard. Before he fully understands what is even going on, Harry gets carried off by the
enormous Hagrid, the keeper of keys at the school, on a flying motorcycle (J.K. Rowling). And
this is how the wild adventure of Harry Potter begins. Instead of learning about math and
geometry, he takes lessons in the History of Magic and Charms, or Defenses against the Dark
Arts. After joining the school's quidditch team, an aerial competitive game similar to soccer but
played on broomsticks, he becomes quite the star (J.K. Rowling). He forms new friends such
as Hermione and Ron but also enemies like Draco Malfoy who are with him throughout his
adventure (J.K. Rowling). The first edition of The Philosopher's stone printed 500 copies
which quickly sold out in the United Kingdom. After seeing the major popularity of the book in
the United Kingdom many American publishers wanted to purchase the rights to the book in the
US so it went to auction. The popular United States publisher, Scholastic, ended up winning the
bid war and paid approximately $100,000 for the rights, the most ever paid for a first novel by a
childrens book author (J.K. Rowling). It was this deal that caused J.K. Rowling to quit her
teaching job. She could now afford to pursue a writing career full time and being the creative
person she is, she has enjoyed every minute of it. Her book quickly rose to the top of the

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childrens bestseller list in 1998 (J.K. Rowling). The success of her first children's book and
the demand for more caused Rowling to continue along the path of a writer and pursue her dream
of telling stories.
As Rowling continued to write, her fan base grew larger and larger. The second book in
the Harry Potter series, named Chamber of Secrets, quickly became just as popular, if not more
popular than her first book. Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets took first place in
bestseller of the month in the United Kingdom (Harry Potter Fascinates). In England, it
rapidly rose to the top of the adult best seller list (J.K. Rowling). Rowling, eager to supplement
her fans with another addition to her best selling series she began writing her next book almost
instantly. A year later she released the next book of the insanely popular series, Harry Potter.
This book would be titled Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which she released in 1999.
The release of this book received mass media coverage and, like the previous novels, topped the
bestseller charts (Harry Potter Fascinates). After the groundbreaking success of her third
Harry Potter novel she took a break and wrote some smaller novels that were still in the Harry
Potter universe. The Harry Potter series continued when Rowling released the fourth book of the
series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This book broke records for first print runs, selling 1
million copies in the United Kingdom and 3.8 million in the United States (Harry Potter
Fascinates). The record breaking demand for Harry Potter books started a new era in internet
sales of books internationally. After the release of The Prisoner of Azkaban, she wrote some
novels not directly in line with the Harry Potter character but she still stayed within his universe.

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The books she wrote were titled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch
Through the Ages. Given the financial situation in which Rowling began her writing career, she
wanted to give back so she wrote these books for charity. She used pseudonyms when she
published these books, the first under the fictitious author Newt Scamander and the other
credited to Kennilworthy Whisp. These books were released in both the United States and the
United Kingdom. The books sold in the United Kingdom raised 20 million dollars for a British
anti poverty agency called Comic Relief. The ones that sold in the United States also raised 20
million dollars but for the International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis (J.K.
Rowling). With the financial situation in which she began her career now behind her, she has
continually given to a variety of charities. So much so that in 2012, Forbes removed Rowling
from its Billionaire List in 2012 because she dropped below a charity cutoff line (J.K.
Rowling). This cutoff line was $160 million in charitable donations (Bethune). Although she
consistently gave back her writing style was not so consistent.
Following the success of Goblet of Fire, Rowling did not wait long to release the next
segment of Harrys Adventure, but it was not the same. Rowling moved away from a childrens
writing style and went for a more adult audience when writing this book. In the next installment
titled Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry begins his fifth year at Hogwarts with a
new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher appointed to the school (J.K. Rowling). The new
teacher, Dolores Umbridge, begins making radical changes to the school and forcing many rules
onto the students. Her teaching is inefficient and teaches the children little to nothing. She also
maintains very cruel disciplinary methods. Because of these things, Harry begins to teach a

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group of students in proper Defense against the Dark Arts on his own because of a rising tide of
evil (J.K. Rowling). The expected success of this book was soon followed by a movie release
based on Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. The release of this movie broke all previous box
office records. as the final two books were released so were the movies to follow all of Harry
Potters adventure. The first five films brought in over four billion dollars worldwide. The
wonderful life of Harry Potter acquired a cult status and quickly became a global phenomenon
(Harry Potter Fascinates). The fandom led to merchandising, video games, and, in 2010, a
theme park at Universal Studios in Florida.
After the huge success of Harry Potter, Rowling moved on to sharing her success with
others. In 2008 she gave a speech at Harvard which was recorded and is now the most viewed
item on the Harvard Website. University presses Drew Gilpin Faust calls it the most moving
and memorable speech she has heard. It is to be printed on a short 70-page volume titled Very
Good Lives . Since 2012 she has released an adult novel, titled The Casual Vacancy, and two
crime novels (Bethune). Rowling said that she thinks it is better when a novel is judged under its
own merits and not based on the name of the author so she wrote them under a pseudonym.
Robert Galbraith, one of Rowlings pseudonyms, first novel, The Cuckoos Calling was
rejected by Several Publishers. The novel gained critical praise for its debut author (Bethune).
Ever since the release of her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, J.K.
Rowlings success has only risen. The release of the variety of Harry Potter novels weren't her
only successes, the success of her novels which were written under a pseudonym were also very
successful despite Rowling not being known as the author. Rowling continues to give back the

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money she earned from her books and even wrote books whose profit went purely to charity. She
was a very poor single mother before the success of her writing. Her first book was denied by
several publishers but she stuck to it and eventually was able to say she was a published writer.
As J.K. Rowling once said, Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a
thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is
something on which to pride yourself... and her life story shows that nothing is more true.

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Works Cited
Bethune, Brian. "What could J.K. Rowling possibly know about failure? A lot, it turns out."
Maclean's 20 Apr. 2015: 45. Student Resources in Context. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Harry Potter Fascinates Children and Adults. Historic World Events. Detroit: Gale, 2011.
Student Resources in Context. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
"J. K. Rowling." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2015. 28 October 2015.
J. K. Rowling. UXL Biographies. Detroit: UXL, 2011. Student Resources in Context. Web. 19
Oct. 2015.
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic, 2003. Print.
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: Scholastic, 1997. Print.