JK Rowling is a famously private person who rarely grants interviews, but now comes a new book, a bibliography of her work, that promises to offer unrevealed revelations about the woman who created Harry Potter.
As The Guardian tells us, JK Rowling: A Bibliography 1997-2013, has come together thanks to Philip Errington, who is Sotheby’s director of children’s books. He was granted access to the archives at Bloomsbury publishers, and conducted original interviews as well.
Many of the Bloomsbury archives show how difficult it is to write any book, let alone major hits like the Potter stories. It’s also hard to come up with the right title. (Harry Potter and the Death Eaters?)
There’s also an amusing story about how the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was given to a publishing executive in a scenario straight out of an espionage thriller. Once the executive drove home with the manuscript in his car, he recalled, “By this stage the series was so enormous that I was almost frightened to be in physical possession of it…There was no question of showing any of it to [my wife]. Even then I was putting bits of it in the safe.”
