Harry Potter and the hint of death
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
03/02/2007
As a single mother struggling to make ends meet, JK Rowling began her writing career in a small café where she lingered for hours over a single cup of coffee.
The scrawl on the Balmoral bust
The rest, as they say, is history. Around 325 million book sales later, she has underlined her extraordinary success by finishing the Harry Potter series in rather more upmarket surroundings.
She finished the seventh book while staying at the five-star Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh.
Before checking out, she marked the occasion with a tantalising inscription scribbled on the back of a Roman-style bust.
It looks as if it was written hastily in marker pen, and it says: "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007".
She may simply have wanted to mark the end of a remarkable journey that led her to a personal fortune estimated at £520 million.
But her fans are likely to treat the note as another fiendish clue.
According to one report, the bust depicts Hadrian, the Roman emperor who built the eponymous wall to divide Roman Britain from the "barbarians" in the north.
Staff at the Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh were surprised to learn that Rowling finished writing her last Harry Potter book in the hotel and that she left a little note of it on the back of what may be a bust depicing Emperor Hadrian, the man who built Hadrian's Wall in the North of England to keep the barbarian Scots out of their Empire
The hotel says the identity of the bust is incorrect, but Potter geeks are already putting two and two together to point out that Emperor Septimius Severus restored the wall, which passes close to a village in Yorkshire called Snape.
Could the message mean that Prof Severus Snape is one of the two key characters to be killed off in the final book?
The world will have to wait until July 21 to find out, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is published.
Cleaning staff are said to have found the inscription in the £300-a-night bedroom at the hotel.
The author's message has turned the ornament into a valuable item and it was immediately removed from the room with the management concerned it will become a pilgrimage site for Potter fans.
Miss Rowling's main home is in Edinburgh, but she has admitted she finds it easier to write elsewhere, and has been spotted working in cafés all over the capital.
A spokesman for the author said: "We can confirm JK Rowling did write some of the book at the Balmoral last month and she did complete the book at that hotel."
telegraph.co.uk
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
03/02/2007
As a single mother struggling to make ends meet, JK Rowling began her writing career in a small café where she lingered for hours over a single cup of coffee.
The scrawl on the Balmoral bust
The rest, as they say, is history. Around 325 million book sales later, she has underlined her extraordinary success by finishing the Harry Potter series in rather more upmarket surroundings.
She finished the seventh book while staying at the five-star Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh.
Before checking out, she marked the occasion with a tantalising inscription scribbled on the back of a Roman-style bust.
It looks as if it was written hastily in marker pen, and it says: "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007".
She may simply have wanted to mark the end of a remarkable journey that led her to a personal fortune estimated at £520 million.
But her fans are likely to treat the note as another fiendish clue.
According to one report, the bust depicts Hadrian, the Roman emperor who built the eponymous wall to divide Roman Britain from the "barbarians" in the north.
Staff at the Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh were surprised to learn that Rowling finished writing her last Harry Potter book in the hotel and that she left a little note of it on the back of what may be a bust depicing Emperor Hadrian, the man who built Hadrian's Wall in the North of England to keep the barbarian Scots out of their Empire
The hotel says the identity of the bust is incorrect, but Potter geeks are already putting two and two together to point out that Emperor Septimius Severus restored the wall, which passes close to a village in Yorkshire called Snape.
Could the message mean that Prof Severus Snape is one of the two key characters to be killed off in the final book?
The world will have to wait until July 21 to find out, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is published.
Cleaning staff are said to have found the inscription in the £300-a-night bedroom at the hotel.
The author's message has turned the ornament into a valuable item and it was immediately removed from the room with the management concerned it will become a pilgrimage site for Potter fans.
Miss Rowling's main home is in Edinburgh, but she has admitted she finds it easier to write elsewhere, and has been spotted working in cafés all over the capital.
A spokesman for the author said: "We can confirm JK Rowling did write some of the book at the Balmoral last month and she did complete the book at that hotel."
telegraph.co.uk
