Rowling reveals unpublished fairytale written on party dress

J K Rowling has revealed she has written a children's fairy tale on a party dress she wore for her 50th birthday in 2015.

The Harry Potter author said the story may never be published and is instead hanging up in her wardrobe. She arranged the party, at Halloween in 2015, to be themed around “your own private nightmare” and attended as a “lost manuscript”.

The revelations of the fairy tale were made during a CNN interview on Monday (10th July). When interviewer Christiane Amanpour asked her about a rumoured political book for young people, Rowling said: “Oh, that was a fairy tale ... it wasn’t political in a party political sense…and I don’t know if I’ll ever publish that but I will tell you this.

"The theme of my 50th birthday, which I held at Halloween, even though that's not really my birthday, was come as your own private nightmare. And I went as a lost manuscript. And I wrote over a dress most of that book.”

The Edinburgh-based author added: “So that book, I don't know whether it will ever be published, but it's actually hanging in a wardrobe currently.”

Rowling also revealed her “worst fear” is powerlessness and small spaces, which she said may explain why her boy wizard creation Harry Potter slept in a cupboard at the Dursleys while growing up. Once seeing a photo in a news article of a child trapped in a cage stayed with her and influenced her, she revealed. “I suppose why did I put Harry in the cupboard? Because this is my fear, being trapped and being powerless, just powerless to get out of that space. So yeah, on a very crude level, I think that news story tapped into something that I found personally horrifying”, she said.

Amanpour quizzed the writer about her pen name and Rowling explained that her Harry Potter publisher, Bloomsbury, wanted to “disguise” her gender to appeal to both sexes.

She said: “They [Bloomsbury] said to me, we think this is a book that will appeal to boys and girls… And they said, so could we use your initials? Because, basically they were trying to disguise my gender.

“And obviously, that lasted about three seconds, because -- which is wonderful, I'm certainly not complaining, but the book won an award and I got a big advance from America and I got a lot of publicity.”

She added that she was “outed” as a woman and agreed with the interviewer that she was a “strong role model”. However she explained that her gratitude in being published (Rowling was originally rejected by 12 publishers in a row) meant she would have called herself “Rupert” if Bloomsbury had asked.

Rowling said: “I quite like J K... I wouldn't have chosen it, but I was so grateful to be published, if they told me to call myself Rupert, I probably would have done to be honest with you.”

She added: “But now, I actually quite like having a pen name, because to an extent that feels like an identity and then in private life, I'm Jo Murray. And it feels like quite a nice separation.”

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone celebrated its 20th anniversary on 26th June with a host of celebrations around the country. The first in Rowling’s series has sold more than 5m copies through the Nielsen Total Consumer Market and the author is responsible for 1% of all books sold in the UK since BookScan records began in 1998.