College Pop Culture

Ms. Rowling is no stranger to changing her name for publishing purposes. When she first sent in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the 90’s, she didn’t put her full name on the manuscript for fear that boys might not want to read a book if it were written by a woman. So, akin to Mr. Tolkien, she used initials in place of her first name. As it turns out, her sex was not an issue, Harry Potter as we all know was a great success. So, why go under a pseudonym and why Robert Galbraith? Rowling stated that she had hoped to keep the secret because, “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.” That answers the pseudonym question, as for the name itself? Those familiar with Rowling’s works know that she loves to pair a character with a name that will suit them. Robert can be traced back to Germanic ties, meaning fame, and Galbraith is a Scottish clan that, in Gaelic means, “British foreigner”. Put two and two together and it roughly translates to “famous stranger”, pretty fitting, no?

 

 

Prior to Rowling coming out as the author of this new novel, the book had done fairly well. Like her prodigy series, The Cuckoo’s Calling was turned down by a few publishers before Sphere picked it up and agreed to put it into print. Having sold 1,500 copies before revealing Rowling, the murder mystery is now on top of Amazon’s sales list and is flying off the shelves.

 

 

Rowling was ‘discovered’ because of an anonymous tip given to the Sunday Times and after doing some investigations of their own, which included sending the manuscript to a linguist who found incredibly accurate comparisons between Cuckoo’s Calling and her other works. It is up for debate as to whether or not Rowling herself sent the tip in. Either way, I think we all need to just take a moment and appreciate how wonderful it will be to have another series of hers available for us to devour as readily as we did Harry Potter.