Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone - Gryffindor Edition (Relie)

Joanne Rowling

Joanne Rowling was born on 31st July 1965. Dianne, her younger sister, was born almost two years later and Joanne’s earliest childhood memory is of Dianne’s arrival. She, her sister and her parents lived in Winterbourne, Gloucestershire, until Joanne was nine, when the family moved to Tutshill, near Chepstow.

Joanne grew up surrounded by books as her mum and dad loved reading – she says, ‘I lived for books … I was your basic common-or-garden bookworm, complete with freckles and National Health spectacles.’ From an early age Joanne wanted to be a writer. She wrote her first book at the age of six – a story about a rabbit called Rabbit. Then when she was eleven she wrote a novel about seven cursed diamonds and the people who owned them.

Joanne went to school at Wyedean Comprehensive School and then went on to study French and Classics at the University of Exeter.