<P> Born in Yate , Gloucestershire , England , Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990 . The seven - year period that followed saw the death of her mother , birth of her first child , divorce from her first husband and relative poverty until the first novel in the series , Harry Potter and the Philosopher 's Stone , was published in 1997 . There were six sequels , of which the last , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , was released in 2007 . Since then , Rowling has written four books for adult readers : The Casual Vacancy ( 2012 ) and -- under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith -- the crime fiction novels The Cuckoo 's Calling ( 2013 ) , The Silkworm ( 2014 ) and Career of Evil ( 2015 ) . </P>
<P> Born in Yate , Gloucestershire , England , Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990 . The seven - year period that followed saw the death of her mother , birth of her first child , divorce from her first husband and relative poverty until the first novel in the series , Harry Potter and the Philosopher 's Stone , was published in 1997 . There were six sequels , of which the last , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , was released in 2007 . Since then , Rowling has written four books for adult readers : The Casual Vacancy ( 2012 ) and -- under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith -- the crime fiction novels The Cuckoo 's Calling ( 2013 ) , The Silkworm ( 2014 ) and Career of Evil ( 2015 ) . </P>
when did jk rowling write her first book
when did jk rowling write her first book
1997
1997