Lockdown gift JK Rowling’s free fairy tale
When J K Rowling threw a 50th birthday with the theme ‘‘come as your own private nightmare’’, she wore a dress covered in text and explained that she was ‘‘a lost manuscript’’.
Now she has not only dug out that manuscript but announced that she is publishing her first children’s book outside the Harry Potter universe as a gift to young readers during lockdown.
The Ickabog is a fairy tale ‘‘about truth and the abuse of power’’. The author first wrote it for her own children and planned to release it after the final Potter instalment in 2007, but she then abandoned the project and chose to write for adults instead.
The story gathered dust in the attic until Rowling brought it down and decided to release it free online in daily instalments.
The story will be published in physical form in November, with royalties going to help groups affected by the Covid-19 crisis.
As an added bonus, children aged seven to 12 are invited to create illustrations for the fairy tale, the best of which will be included in the printed book.
Making the surprise announcement, Rowling was at pains to point out to Potter fans that this was a very different proposition. ‘‘It isn’t Harry Potter and it doesn’t include magic. This is an entirely different story,’’ she said.
Explaining the genesis of The Ickabog, Rowling, 54, said she had produced a first draft ‘‘in fits and starts’’ between Potter books.
‘‘I always meant to publish it, but after the last Potter was released, I wrote two novels for adults and, after some dithering, decided to put those out next.
Rowling published The Casual Vacancy for adult readers and her Robert Galbraith detective series.
‘‘Until very recently, the only people who’d heard The Ickabog story were my two younger children,’’ she said.
‘‘Over time, I came to think of it as a story that belonged to my two younger children, because I’d read it to them in the evenings when they were little, which has always been a happy family memory.’’
She went on: ‘‘A few weeks ago at dinner, I tentatively mooted the idea of getting The Ickabog down from the attic and publishing it for free, for children in lockdown.
‘‘My now teenagers were touchingly enthusiastic, so downstairs came the very dusty box, and for the past few weeks I’ve been immersed in a fictional world I thought I’d never enter again.’’
Rowling said she had re-read the chapters nightly to her family, which was ‘‘one of the most extraordinary experiences of my writing life, as The Ickabog’s first two readers told me what they remember from when they were tiny, and demanded the reinstatement of bits they’d particularly liked’’. – Telegraph Group