Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born on July 31, 1965, in Gloucestershire, England. The daughter of Peter and Anne Rowling, an engineer and laboratory technician, respectively, she developed her interest in literature and writing during her childhood in rural southwestern England.

In addition to her parents buying books, mostly British children's classics, and reading aloud to Joanne and her sister Diana, Rowling created fantasy tales about rabbits, one of her favorite animals, to amuse her sister. Rowling enjoyed roaming the countryside near her home, viewing historical sites and castles that sparked her imagination. She also played with neighbor children named the Potters. Their games often involved fantastical elements such as pretending to be wizards and witches much like Rowling's fictional protagonist and his friends.

At school, the teenage Rowling favored literature courses and disliked mathematics and chemistry classes. Writing funny stories to amuse her classmates, Rowling dreamed...