To the ranks of famous fairy tales authors like the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, we can add Joanne Rowling. Fittingly for an author who wrote a modern-day version of a fairy tale, she has lived a rags-to-riches life herself, going from surviving on social security to a net worth estimated at $1 billion. And she got the idea for her magnum opus Harry Potter fully formed, while on train trip from Manchester to London delayed by four hours.

On this day, June 26, in 1997, seven years after the inspirational train trip. Rowling published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Her manuscript was reviewed and rejected by all seven of the large publishing houses she went to, and was accepted by the Bloomsbury on the advice of Bloomsbury chairman’s eight-year-old daughter who was very taken with the story.

Rowling had a passion for fantasy writing since her earliest years. She recalled in an interview, “Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee. And ever since Rabbit and Miss Bee, I have wanted to be a writer, though I rarely told anyone so. I was afraid they’d tell me I didn’t have a hope.”