J. K. Rowling Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling’s life has the luster of a fairy tale. Divorced, living on public assistance in a tiny Edinburgh fiat with her infant daughter, Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at a table in a cafe (46) and it was Harry Potter that rescued her. Rowling remembers that she always wanted to write and that the first story she actually wrote down, when she was five or six, was a story about a rabbit called Rabbit. Many of her favorite memories center around (47) . On a particularly long train ride from Manchester to London in the summer of 1990, the idea came to her of a boy who is a wizard and doesn’t know it. He attends a school for wizardry --she could see him very plainly in her mind. (48) four hours later, many of the characters and the early stages of the plot were fully formed in her head. The story took further shape as she continued working on it in pubs and cafes over her lunch hours. Rowling was working as a French teacher when she heard that her book about the boy wizard had been accepted for publication. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in June 1997 and achieved almost instant success. (49) retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in 1998, Rowling’s books continued to make publishing history. Han’y Potter climbed to the top of all the bestseller lists for children’s and adult books. In Britain a separate edition of the first book appeared with a more "adult" dust jacket so that grown-ups reading it on trains and subways (50) . J.K. Rowling lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her daughter Jessica and continues to work on writing the seven-book story of Harry Potter.
A. would not have to hide their copy behind a newspaper.
B. With the publication of the American edition,
C. By the time the train pulled into King’s Cross Station
D. Young people prefer to read stories about cities.