2023 marked 25 years since Harry Potter and his friends burst onto the scene in America. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was first published in the U.S. in September 1998. The initial 50 thousand copies flew off the shelves. Since then, the Harry Potter series has sold over 230 million copies in America and 600 million worldwide.

According to the publisher, the series has been published in 85 languages, made into eight blockbuster films, and the audiobooks have been listened to for over one billion hours. It was an unexpected success for the author J.K. Rowling, who was unknown before she wrote about “the “boy who lived.”

Joanne Rowling wrote her first book at the age of six. It was a story about a rabbit, simply called “Rabbit”. She wrote her first novel when she was eleven. This time it was about seven cursed diamonds and the people who owned them. The idea for the Harry Potter series came to her in 1990 during a delayed train journey from Manchester to London King’s Cross.

Over the next five years, she built up a mass of handwritten notes. Rowling had been scribbling on odd scraps of paper as she plotted out the series. When she moved to Portugal in 1993 to teach English, she took her Harry Potter notes with her. And by the time she returned to the UK, she had a suitcase containing the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Rowling used her spare time to finish the book. And once she had a full manuscript, she sent the first three chapters to a bunch of publishers. Only one wrote back, asking to see the rest of it. It was “the best letter I had ever received in my life,” said Rowling on her site. The first Harry Potter book was finally published in the U.K. in 1997. Seven years after the idea was sparked on that destined delayed train ride.

The author had wanted to publish her book under the name Joanne Rowling. But the publisher asked her to use “J.K. Rowling” instead. They “thought a book by an obviously female author might not appeal to the target audience of young boys,” revealed Rowling. The ‘K’ stands for Kathleen, which was her paternal grandmother’s name.

When the book was published in America in 1998, the publisher chose to change the title to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”. It was the beginning of a bunch of record-breaking successes for Rowling, who added six more books to the series over the years.

Both the author and the series have skirted controversy since the first book was published. Some accused Rowling of promoting witchcraft and paganism in her writing. And the books were banned and even burned in some places. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was the most frequently challenged book in the U.S. in 1999.

“The Harry Potter series, three of which were published in the U.S. in 1999, made the list of the top 100 most frequently challenged books of the decade 1990-1999 (#48), even though they were only out for part of one year of the decade!" wrote the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association. "And, of course, the series topped the most frequently challenged list of 2000-2009.”

Rowling has also made headlines for her controversial comments, unrelated to the books. As the BBC reported, “Rowling has been accused of being transphobic for her views on gender identity and for saying trans women shouldn't be allowed into female-only spaces.”

The author also challenged police to arrest her under a new hate crime law after describing several trans women as men. And she's had public spats with Harry Potter film stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, when they came to the defence of the trans community.

Just recently, Rowling was accused of cyberbullying, following her comments about Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif. Rowling was named alongside Elon Musk in a formal criminal complaint. French authorities were asked to investigate alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment”.

Despite the controversy, and several attempts to cancel J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter lives on. Sales of digital Harry Potter books totalled $61.4 million last year, a jump from the previous year. Book sales via Bloomsbury were also up by 15% in 2023. Meanwhile, the artwork for the cover of Rowling’s first Potter book sold for $1.9m at an auction in June this year.