Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was first distributed by Bloomsbury on June 26, 1997. The book recounted the narrative of Harry Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday celebration, learns he is a wizard and has been acknowledged to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
His date of birth? July 31 — the same birthday as the author who created him, J.K. Rowling. Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 making her 52 years old today. Harry was born in 1980, meaning he is now 37 years old.
Two decades since the very first Harry Potter book was published, more 450 million copies of books from the Harry Potter series have been sold around the world. J.K. Rowling’s story is nearly as famous as her boy wizard’s. A single mother who relied on welfare in Britain, Rowling came up with the idea of Harry Potter on a delayed train trip. She described it in 2000 as a “rush.”
“Harry was there. People like Nearly Headless Nick and Peeves, the inhabitants of the castle were there,” she said in a CBC interview, shortly after the fourth book in the series had been published.
“Harry’s scar was there and I kind of knew how that had happened. It’s a very strange thing, but I know I’m not alone in this among writers.”
Rowling spent five years working on the Harry Potter universe and finishing the first book of the series. She described the day she got a book deal as one of the best of her life.
“The happiest moment of my life was having my daughter handed to me in the hospital. Indescribable feeling. Second only to that moment was the moment my agent phoned me up and said, ‘We’ve got a deal with Bloomsbury,'” Rowling said on her press tour for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
“Nothing that has happened since, and I include the sales figures and the New York Times bestseller list and all of that, which is, don’t get be wrong, has been fabulous. Nothing has equalled the moment when I knew my book was going to be published. What a moment. Walked on air for days. Can’t tell you.”
After seven books, the Potter series ended, but fans’ appetite never waned. A play written by Jack Thorne, with help from Rowling and theatre director John Tiffany, premiered in London’s West End in 2016. With critics raving and awards pouring in, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two will open on Broadway in April 2018.