Renowned Author J.K. Rowling Reveals Details of a Secret Manuscript

By Ashley Lenahan on July 15, 2017

By Daniel Ogren, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15164977

J.K. Rowling is not a name unknown to fame. It is the pen-name of British novelist, philanthropist, screenwriter, and producer Joanne Murray who is best known as the author of the Harry Potter books, a fantasy series that has achieved immense literary success with more than 400 million copies sold worldwide and has been made into an acclaimed franchise of film adaptations.

Rowling is also the author of several other bestsellers, including the books Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Casual Vacancy which too have been made into screen adaptations. In addition, she wrote the crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

During a recent interview with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, Rowling admitted to having an unpublished manuscript stored in perhaps the last place that fans would expect: her bedroom closet.

Rowling revealed the existence of the manuscript at the end of an interview that centered on her children’s charity, Lumos, which aims to supplement community-based education, health, and social services to poverty-stricken children in place of institutional care.

As featured on CNN.com, Rowling explained how she scrawled most of the unpublished manuscript’s contents across a party dress that she wore to her 50th birthday party. As the party’s theme requested that guests attend as their own private nightmare, the dress served as Rowling’s costume of a lost manuscript.

This is not the only shocking disclosure that Rowling has made recently. Last month, as mentioned on Mirror.com, Rowling acknowledged the existence of two different Harry Potters on Pottermore, a site that she frequently updates with new Harry Potter-related content, including supplementary writings.

The second Harry Potter, known officially as Henry Potter but called Harry by friends, is identified as the great grandfather of the Harry from Rowling’s beloved book series. Her account of his distinguished career amidst the early 1900s serves to provide fans with tales of Potter’s wizarding world never mentioned in the books.

There remains uncertainty of whether the freshly disclosed manuscript will ever see the light of publication. In regards to the manuscript, during the CNN interview, Rowling stated, “… I don’t know whether it will ever be published, but it’s actually hanging in a wardrobe currently” (CNN).

Though, simple knowledge of the manuscript’s existence should instill Rowling’s fans with hope for its publication and, at the very least, should inspire dreams of one day raiding her closet.

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