J. K. Rowling
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50 free J. K. Rowling trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
J. K. Rowling's own story is almost as well known as the one she wrote. A single mother living on benefits in Edinburgh finished a children's book in cafés, saw it turned down again and again, and became one of the best-selling authors in history. The details are stranger and funnier than the legend, which makes them good quiz material. This quiz covers the whole career: her childhood and student years, the long road to publication, the Harry Potter books and films, the detective novels she writes under another name, her stories for younger children, and her awards and philanthropy. Expect questions about names, places, publishers and the people who helped along the way. It is written for readers who grew up with the books and for anyone curious about the person behind them. The opening questions are the most approachable, later ones reward real fans, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01J. K. Rowling's parents first met on a journey to Scotland that began at which London railway station?
King's Cross
King's Cross is also where Rowling starts the Hogwarts Express on its run north; her parents were heading for navy postings at Arbroath.
Q 02The idea for Harry Potter came to J. K. Rowling on a delayed train heading to London from which city?
Manchester
Manchester was the city she planned to move to, and with no pen or paper she spent the four-hour delay building the story in her head.
Q 03In which country was J. K. Rowling teaching English at night while she drafted the first Harry Potter book?
Portugal
Portugal was her home from 1991 to 1993: she taught evening classes in Porto, wrote during the day, and her first child was born there.
Q 04Which London publisher took J. K. Rowling's first book after its chief's eight-year-old daughter read a chapter?
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury said yes after twelve other publishers had turned the manuscript down, though her editor there warned she would never make money from children's books.
Q 05Under which pen name did J. K. Rowling publish the crime novel The Cuckoo's Calling, posing as an army veteran?
Robert Galbraith
Robert Galbraith was presented as a first-time author with an army and security background, and the secret held for about three months after publication.
Q 06In which animated series did J. K. Rowling voice herself when a visiting American family toured London in 2003?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons met her in the episode The Regina Monologues, and she recorded her lines by satellite link from her home in Scotland.
Q 07Besides Britain's high taxes, what did Forbes say cost J. K. Rowling her billionaire status in 2012?
Charitable donations
Charitable donations put at about $160 million by then had shrunk her fortune, eight years after Forbes called her the first billion-dollar author.
Q 08J. K. Rowling named her charity for children in orphanages after which spell from Harry Potter?
Lumos
Lumos grew from a newspaper report she read in 2004 about children kept in caged beds, and she pays its core costs so that other gifts fund the work.
Q 09On what object in her Edinburgh hotel room did J. K. Rowling sign a note that she had finished Harry Potter?
A marble bust
A marble bust of Hermes in room 552 of the Balmoral carries her note from January 2007, and it now sits in a glass case in a suite named after her.
Q 10At the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, J. K. Rowling read aloud from which classic children's story?
Peter Pan
Peter Pan's copyright was given to Great Ormond Street Hospital, whose charity logo was picked out by 320 illuminated hospital beds in the same sequence.
Q 11Which first name, usually shortened to Jo, does the J in J. K. Rowling's pen name stand for?
Joanne
Joanne is her only given name: she was born with no middle name, so the second initial was added just for the book cover.
Q 12J. K. Rowling gave Harry Potter her own birthday, which falls on the last day of which month?
July
July 31 is the date they share, though she maintains that Harry is not directly based on any real person.
Q 13J. K. Rowling's American publisher replaced the word Philosopher in her first book's title with which word?
Sorcerer
Sorcerer was Rowling's own compromise after her American editor asked to rename the book Harry Potter and the School of Magic.
Q 21J. K. Rowling has no middle name, so which relative, Kathleen, supplied the K on her book covers?
Her grandmother
Her grandmother Kathleen was her father's mother; the publisher had asked for initials, fearing boys would not pick up a book written by a woman.
Q 22At which English university did J. K. Rowling study French and Classics, running up a £50 library fine?
Exeter
Exeter took her after Oxford had rejected her application, and her course there included a year living in Paris.
Q 23Before Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling researched abuses in French-speaking Africa for which human rights organisation?
Amnesty International
Q 14Which Hollywood studio bought the film rights to J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novels in 1999?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. had to accept her terms: Rowling kept final script approval and a rule that the studio could film only stories she had written.
Q 15Which Harry Potter actor did J. K. Rowling let in on his character's secret past years before the final book?
Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman used what she told him to shape his scenes, and when directors queried a choice he would say only that he knew something they did not.
Q 16Which British actor stars as the wizard Newt Scamander in the first film J. K. Rowling wrote as a screenwriter?
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne, already a fan of the books, was cast in 2015 for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which opens in the New York of 1926.
Q 17Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a sequel J. K. Rowling helped devise, first reached audiences in what form?
A stage play
A stage play in two parts, it opened in London's West End in 2016 with a script by Jack Thorne and won nine Olivier Awards the following year.
Q 18Which studious Harry Potter character has J. K. Rowling described as an exaggerated version of her younger self?
Hermione Granger
Hermione Granger exaggerates the know-it-all that Rowling says she was as a girl, and the author has called her bright, logical, upright and good.
Q 19Which Hogwarts character did J. K. Rowling reveal to be gay when a fan at Carnegie Hall asked about his love life?
Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore's secret reached the film set too: she crossed out a screenplay passage about his attraction to a woman and wrote in a correction.
Q 20J. K. Rowling funded an Edinburgh research clinic for which illness, which her mother died of in 1990?
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in her mother when Rowling was 15, and in 2010 the author gave £10 million to found the clinic that carries Anne Rowling's name.
Amnesty International hired her in London after she took a bilingual secretarial course, and she was writing unpublished novels for adults at the time.
Q 24J. K. Rowling wrote her first story at age six about which animal, inspired by Richard Scarry's books?
A rabbit
A rabbit, named simply Rabbit, was the hero of that first tale, and by eleven she had moved on to a story about seven cursed diamonds.
Q 25Which make of car, owned in turquoise by J. K. Rowling's sixth-form friend Sean Harris, flies in her second novel?
Ford Anglia
A Ford Anglia was her escape from a difficult home life, and its owner later lent her £600 for the flat where she finished her first book.
Q 26Which American publisher won the auction for J. K. Rowling's first book, paying $105,000 for the US rights?
Scholastic
Scholastic's payment let her buy a flat in Edinburgh, and its American edition reached bookshops in September 1998.
Q 27Which character was J. K. Rowling considered for in the film of Philosopher's Stone, a part she turned down?
Lily Potter
Lily Potter, seen only fleetingly on screen as Harry's late mother, went to Geraldine Somerville once the author had said no.
Q 28Which 2012 novel about a parish council election was J. K. Rowling's first book written for adults?
The Casual Vacancy
The Casual Vacancy was promoted as a black comedy of village life, and the BBC and HBO later turned it into a miniseries.
Q 29Which British charity received J. K. Rowling's royalties from Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages?
Comic Relief
Comic Relief received all her royalties from the two slim companion books of 2001, each published under the name of a fictional wizard author.
Q 30Which Harry Potter novel won J. K. Rowling a Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Convention?
Goblet of Fire
Goblet of Fire took the 2001 Hugo for Best Novel, and it is the only book of the seven to have won one.