J.K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, has taken two characteristic steps to set the rumor-strewn record straight about her life and work, and rebut a string of allegations and sometimes malicious gossip.
It was announced on Tuesday that she has loaned valuable manuscripts to a new children's literature center, and diligent users of her Web site found a rubbish bin full of tart responses to false stories.
Rowling dismisses media claims of her supposed annoyance at being labelled a children's writer, or having a meal with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. "I just hope they can remember it because I can't," she says, before knocking down another rumor -- the lie that she vetoed Steven Spielberg as director of the Potter sagas.
"Several stories have alleged that my husband had given up work, presumably to sit at home and watch me write," she says. "This is one of these stories that make me angry because they hurt my family. Neil has never given up work and continues to practise as a doctor in Edinburgh."
A scrap coded "toxic -- hurtful, does damage" alleged that the vain and self-obsessed wizard Gilderoy Lockhart was based on her first husband, Jorge Aranles.
Meanwhile, visitors to the Seven Stories National Centre for Children's Books, which opens next week, will find what looks like a hastily scribbled shopping list with the words Binns, Auriga, Flitwick, Sprout. For those who fail to recognize the names, an underlined page heading gives the game away: The Journey from Platform 9-and-three-quarters.
This is the original manuscript, much altered and slaved-over, which launched one of modern fiction's most brilliant careers.
Alongside the sheaves of unlined paper, criss-crossed with blue and black ink, one of Rowling's original but unused drawings is also going on show at the ?6.5 million project on Tyneside in north-east England.
The drawing shows Rowling's original idea for Hogwarts' caretaker, Hagrid.
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