More than a third of a million copies of the last Potter book were sold on its first day of release in July 2000 as Potter mania swept the UK.


It became the fastest-selling book in history on the first weekend of its publication and more than 192 million copies of Potter books have been sold world-wide.

Nigel Newton, chief executive of her UK publisher Bloomsbury said. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is absolutely superb and will delight all JK Rowling’s fans."


JK reads unpublished book to dying fan - 30/12/02
JK Rowling was in the news after it was revealed that she read a dying girl her unpublished Harry Potter stories so that she would know what happened before she passed away.


The millionaire author began calling nine-year-old cancer patient Catie Hoch from her Edinburgh home when it became clear she only had weeks to live.

Ms Rowling, 37, read to Catie from the manuscript of the fourth book, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, which she was working on at the time.


She also sent the young Harry Potter fan emails and presents before her death on May 18, 2000, according to the Sunday Mirror.

Catie’s mother, Gina, said Ms Rowling had called her daughter at a crucial time in her fight against neuroblastoma, an aggressive childhood cancer.

She said: "I will be forever grateful for what Joanne did. Catie, from Albany in New York, had been at the end of the third book, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, when doctors said she only had weeks to live.

We laid Catie down on the couch, and Jo read to her over the phone parts of the manuscript.

Ms Rowling, who is pregnant and has an eight-year-old daughter, began writing to Catie after she was contacted about the little girl though her publishers.

Following the little girl’s death Ms Rowling told Catie’s parents that she had left, "footprints on my heart", and that she was, "Braver than Harry".

She is also thought to have made a private donation of ?75,000 to a cancer fund set up in Catie’s memory.


JK Rowling ’earns more than the Queen’ - 30/12/02
Harry Potter author JK Rowling is this year’s biggest female earner with an annual salary around six times greater than the Queen.

Rowling earned ?48 million through the phenomenal success of her creation in book sales and the subsequent cinema box office hits according to the Mail on Sunday’s annual female-only rich list.

Meanwhile, the Queen’s yearly earnings amounted to ?7.7 million, although researchers did not include her civil list payment as this solely covers the expense of being Monarch.

JK Rowling loses Harry Potter court case - 05/12/02
JK Rowling and Warner Bros have lost a legal battle to stop Harry Potter schoolbooks being printed in Germany. German publishers Verlag an der Ruhr said they had used no original quotes or pictures from the original Harry Potter books and had just created schoolbooks.

Rowling and Warner Bros tried to sue the firm, demanding that the books be shredded and a ban slapped on any similar attempts at "plagiarising" Rowling’s ideas. But the Supreme Court in Berlin rejected the case and upheld the earlier decision by two lower courts that allowed Verlag an der Ruhr to carry on publishing the Harry Potter text books.

Verlag an der Ruhr manager Wilfried Stascheit said: "We were amazed when we were served with the legal notice."It was obviously ridiculous and the author has only damaged her own reputation both here and abroad by this quite clearly absurd legal action."