The 100 Most Influential Writers of All Time (43 page)

(b. July 31, 1965, Chipping Sodbury, near Bristol, Eng.)

T
he British author J. K. Rowling is the creator of the popular and critically acclaimed Harry Potter series, about a young sorcerer in training.

After graduating from the University of Exeter in 1986, Rowling began working for Amnesty International in London, where she started to write the Harry Potter adventures. In the early 1990s she traveled to Portugal to teach English as a foreign language, but, after a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, she returned to the
United Kingdom, settling in Edinburgh. Living on public assistance between stints as a French teacher, she continued to write.

Rowling's first book in the series,
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
(1997; also published as
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
), was an immediate success, appealing to both children (its intended audience) and adults. Featuring vivid descriptions and an imaginative story line, it followed the adventures of the unlikely hero Harry Potter, a lonely orphan who discovers that he is actually a wizard and enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book received numerous awards, including the British Book Award. Succeeding volumes—
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
(1998),
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(1999),
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(2000),
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
(2003), and
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
(2005)—also were best-sellers, available in more than 200 countries and some 60 languages. The seventh and final installment in the series,
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
, was released in 2007. Other works include the companion books
Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
and
Quidditch Through the Ages
, both of which were published in 2001, with proceeds going to charity.

The Harry Potter series sparked great enthusiasm among children and was credited with generating a new interest in reading. A film version of the first Harry Potter book was released in 2001 and became one of the topgrossing movies in the world. Other volumes were also made into highly successful films. In 2008 Rowling followed her successful Harry Potter series with
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
, a collection of fairy tales.

Rowling was appointed OBE (Officer of the British Empire) in March 2001. In 2009 she was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.

allegory
The use of fictional figures and actions to symbolize truths or generalizations about human existence.

anecdotal
Based on unscientific reports and observations; describes a scene that depicts a story.

anodyne
An activity or method that calms or relieves pain and tension.

chorus
Describes a group of actors who, in the ancient Greek tradition, respond to and comment on the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation.

didactic
A story written or told in such a way that it teaches the reader/listener a moral.

docti
Scholarly poets.

dramaturgy
Theatre arts, or the act of writing plays.

dream-vision form
A style of narrative poetry in which the main character falls asleep and, in his or her dream, experiences events having representational, instructive, or moral significance.

epic poem
Long and highly stylized poetry that details the heroic achievements of the main protagonist.

episodic
Made up of a series of episodes; when a larger story is told through several smaller stories in sequence.

extant
Still in existence.

heroic
A type of verse form in which, according to literary critics, poetry of a certain language and age should be written.

martial
Having to do with war or military life.

metre
The rhythmic arrangement of syllables in verse.

motif
A dominant or recurrent theme.

novellas
Short narratives with their origins in medieval Italy.

panegyric
A formal, public compliment, often offered after the honoree's death.

paean
Choral chant to a god.

phraseology
The way in which phrases are used to create a writer's style.

picaresque
Describes a story that involves a rogue or adventurer surviving mainly by his or her wits in a treacherous society.

polemic
Describes a controversial opinion that attacks another more popular opinion or doctrine.

protagonist
The main character in a work of literature or drama.

qa
á¹£
Ä«
dah
Classical Arabic ode.

recitation
Speaking several lines of written material before an audience.

sabi
Love of the old, the faded, and the unobtrusive.

set piece
A work of art with a formal theme, created mainly to show the artist's or writer's skill.

Andronik, Catherine M.
Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets—The Mad, the Bad, and the Dangerous
. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2007.

Bentley, Eric, and George Bernard Shaw.
Bernard Shaw
. New York, NY: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002.

Binding, Paul.
The Still Moment: Eudora Welty, Portrait of a Writer
. London, UK: Faber Finds, 2009.

Briggs, Julia.
Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life
. Fort Washington, PA: Harvest Books, 2006.

Cooper Lambdin, Laura.
A Companion to Jane Austen Studies
. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Dalby, Andrew.
Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic
. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.

De Jong, Mary, and Earl Yarington.
Popular Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and the Literary Marketplace
. New Castle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.

Denard, Carolyn C.
Toni Morrison: Conversations
. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2008.

Deresiewicz, William.
Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets
. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004.

Gandal, Keith.
The Gun and the Pen: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and the Fiction of Mobilization
. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Granger, John.
Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader
. Wayne, PA: Zossima Press, 2007

Gurnah, Abdulrazak.
The Cambridge Companion to Salman Rushdie
. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Holland, Merlin, ed.
Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters
. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2007.

Logan, Andrew.
Shakespeare's Marlowe
. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007.

Pearce, Joseph.
Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile
. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001.

Racevskis, Roland.
Tragic Passages: Jean Racine's Art of the Threshold
. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2007.

Rowley, Hazel.
Richard Wright: The Life and Times
. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Shan Chou, Eva.
Reconsidering Tu Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context
. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Smiley, Jane.
Charles Dickens
. New York, NY: Viking/Penguin, 2002.

Soyinka, Wole.
You Must Set Forth at Dawn: A Memoir
. New York, NY: Random House, 2007.

Steinbeck, John.
The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath
. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2002.

Thaden, Barbara Z.
Student Companion to Charlotte and Emily Brontë
. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2001.

A

Abdelazer
,
99

Absalom, Absalom!
,
285

Ada
,
288

Adam Bede
,
190

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
,
215
,
220
–221

Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The
,
215
,
220

Aeneid
,
17
,
33
,
35
–36,
38

Aeschylus,
9
,
22
–25,
27
,
28

Aesthetic movement,
229
,
231
,
254

Afr
āḥ
al-qubba
(
Wedding Song
),
309

After Apple-Picking
,
252

After the Race
,
268

Ah, Wilderness!
,
280

Aké: The Years of Childhood
,
325

Akhmatova, Anna (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko),
280
–283

Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems
,
162

À la recherche du temps perdu
(
In Search of Lost Time
),
249
,
250
,
251

Albertine disparue
(
The Fugitive
),
251

Alcott, Bronson,
158

Alexander le grand
(
Alexander the Great
),
97

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
,
212
,
214
–215

Allegro, L'
,
93

All's Well That Ends Well
,
88

All the Year Round
,
166

À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
(
Within a Budding Grove
),
250

Amasie
,
97

Ambassadors, The
,
225

Amelia
,
116

American Hunger
,
305

American Scene, The
,
226

Amerika
,
274

Amoretti
,
75

Amorous Prince, The
,
99

Andrew Marvell
,
276
–277

Andromaque
,
98

Animal Farm
,
295
,
296
–297

Anna Christie
,
279

Anna Karenina
,
204

Anniversaries
,
91

Anno Domini MCMXXI
,
282

Antiquary, The
,
134

Antony and Cleopatra
,
88

A-Q zhengzhuan
(
The True Story of Ah Q
),
258

Areopagitica
,
95

Aristophanes,
9
,
29
–31

Aristotle,
25
,
28
,
57

Arkhipelag Gulag
(
The Gulag Archipelago
),
315

Arms and the Man
,
236
–237

Art, Dialogue, and Outrage
,
325

Asd
ā
' al-s
Ä«
rah al-dh
ā
tiyyah
(
Echoes of an Autobiography
),
310

Ash Wednesday
,
277

As I Lay Dying
,
285

As You Like It
,
87

Athalie
,
99

Ausgabe letzter Hand
(“Edition of the Last Hand”),
124

Austen, Jane,
11
,
138
–142

Awl
ā
d
ḥ
ā
ratin
ā
(
Children of the Alley
),
309

B

Bajazet
,
98

Ballad of Reading Gaol, The
,
233

Balloon-Hoax, The
,
163

Balzac, Honoré de,
222
,
224
,
249

Barnaby Rudge
,
165

Barrett Browning, Elizabeth,
208

Bash
ō
(Matsuo Bash
ō
),
100
–102