The author, whose full name is Joanne Rowling and who privately took her husband Neil Murray’s surname, also revealed why she wrote under her initials.

“My publisher, who published Harry Potter, they said to me, ‘We think this is a book that will appeal to boys and girls,’” Rowling said. “And I said, ‘Oh, great’. And they said, ‘So could we use your initials?’”

“Basically they were trying to disguise my gender,” she continued. “And obviously, that lasted about three seconds, which is wonderful… I got a lot of publicity. So I was outed as a woman.”

However, Rowling said that while she wouldn’t have chosen to publish Harry Potter using her initials, she now quite likes having a pen name.

“To an extent, that feels like an identity and then in private life, I'm Jo Murray,” she said. “And it feels like quite a nice separation.”

Images: Rex Features / Getty

JK Rowling has written a political fairy tale – but it may never be published