All J. K. Rowling’s Twitter Headers

During the weekend I was talking with our friends, the hosts of the Strike Ellacott Podcast, and Beatrice Groves about the valuable hints that J. K. Rowling’s twitter headers can give us about what she is working on. It was clear that we did not have a single repository of her twitter headers, nor a reliable indication of when they were current.

The Wayback Machine is an internet archive that stores webpages, and allows researchers to see the page as it was when the archive was captured. Using this tool I have captured what I believe is a complete set of all the Rowling twitter headers.

I consider this a work in progress- there are lots of missing dates in the archive, so the dates are the date of the first captured page. If you spot any errors or omissions, please let me know in the comments down below, and I will correct.

I would also like to build links to articles discussing and analysing the more interesting headers, again please let me know in the comments.

29th November 2014

6th December 2014

11th July 2015 & reposted 7th January 2016

4th December 2015

8th December 2015

12th January 2016

11th February 2016

29th February 2016

8th March 2016 a still from the video that accompanies the History of Magic in North America on Pottermore.

11th May 2016 (Archived 12/05/16) Stated by J. K. Rowling to be a flamingo here, but based on colouration and markings, more likely to be a roseate spoonbill.

26th May 2016

20th June 2016

24th June 2016

4th July 2016

2nd August 2016

24th August 2016 these leather bound editions of the Galbraith books were gifted to J. K. Rowling by her publisher. [This is one of these things I remember, but I can no longer find a source. Nick]

2nd September 2016 from the Mina Lima designed cover of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay. John Granger discusses here.

22nd September 2016 a pottermore patronus.

30th September 2016 Broadacre City, a design exercise by American architect Frank Lloyd Right.

14th October 2016 Mulberry Street, New York City 1900. From a photograph held at the Library of Congress.

15th October 2016 from a poster from the first Fantastic Beasts film.

30th October 2016 from a poster from the first Fantastic Beasts film.

15th December 2016 Winter background of Diagon Alley created for Pottermore.

31st December 2016 Harmen Steenwijck – Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life.

23rd February 2017 Kenz from the SEFiles podcast has identified this as from the painting Vanitas, Still Life with Books and Manuscripts and a Skull by Dutch still life painter Evert Collier.

28th March 2017 from the Triumph of Death, or the Three Fates. A tapestry held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

9th April 2017 Taken from this photograph.

1st June 2017 a marble relief sculpture by Johann Gottfried Schaddow on the tomb of Prince Alexander von Mark in Berlin called ‘The Three Morai’ or just ‘The Three Fates. John Granger discusses here.

10th August 2017

18th August 2017 John Granger discusses the swan in anticipation of Lethal White here. The Leda and the Swan connection is discussed by Beatrice Groves here, and John Granger here.

4th October 2017 Benjamin West’s Death on the Pale Horse (1817)

14th November 2017 Photograph called Fall time by Hungarian photographer Ildiko-Neer, identified by Patricio Taratino here.

3rd December 2017 Denmark Street taken from this Guardian newspaper article.

5th December 2017 London from the air, taken from this image.

13th December 2017 Edinburgh Castle during winter, taken from this photo.

7th January 2018

13th February 2018 the ceiling of St Mary Undercroft in the Houses of Parliament identified by Beatrice Groves in John Granger’s post here. The Emily Wilding suffragette connection was spotted by HogPro close reader Lesley Stevens.

6th March 2018 Beatrice Groves discusses this white horse and Death on a Pale Horse here. John Granger considers the white horse evidence here.

24th March 2018

11th April 2018 Kenz from the SEFiles podcast has identified this as a stock photo of the Valerie De La Luna in Chile.

26th April 2018 Sanqing Mountain National Park

13th May 2018 an illustration of Pelicans from the Aberdeen Beastiary. Beatrice Groves discusses here.

21st June 2018

5th July 2018

16th August 2018 Tracy Arm Fjord in Alaska, identified by George Winterbottom here.

20th August 2018

26th September 2018 Evan Willis has identified the source as a shutterstock image “Black feathers close up of black textured surface”.

1st November 2018 Rio de Janiero in the 1930’s as identified by J. K. Rowling here. John Granger discusses here.

15th November 2018 (archived 16/11/18) St. John’s Gate in Clerkenwell from the Illustrated News of the World (1859). Beatrice Groves has demonstrated that this header was posted as Rowling was writing Troubled Blood. Joanne Gray and Nick Jeffery identified the building here. Joanne Gray anticipates what this may mean for Troubled Blood here.

5th December 2018 the Christmas Lights in Regents Street, London, discussed by John Granger here.

7th January 2019 The Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, mentioned by Beatrice Groves here, and discussed by John Granger here.

2nd May 2019 the Capricorn star burst discussed by John Granger here. Based on this HogPro close reader Claudia correctly predicted Aberforth’s involvement in Fantastic Beasts.

23th November 2019 (Archived 27/11/19) Thoth Tarot deck painted by Lady Frieda Harris under instruction from Aleister Crowley. Pools of the SEFiles podcast discusses here.

25th January 2020 (Archived 27/01/20) the natal star chart for Aleister Crowley. Beatrice Groves has discussed Crowley and Rowling in the run up to Troubled Blood publication. Identified by Nick Jeffery and discussed by John Granger here.

20th March 2020 a modern print of the chemical structure of haemoglobin and an illustration from Walter Crane’s 1896 edition of The Faerie Queene. Beatrice Groves discusses here, and Elizabeth Baird Hardy discusses here.

1st April 2020

11th May 2020

21st May 2020

23rd May 2020

24th May 2020

25th May 2020

25th May 2020 /2 (Not present in the  archive) the last in a series of five headers teasing The Ickabog. Revealed by J. K. Rowling here.

26th May 2020

5th July 2020

16th July 2020 (Not present in the archive) First identified as the Hampton Court Clock by Rebecca H here, and discussed by Beatrice Groves prior to the publication of Troubled Blood here.

19th July 2020

10th October 2020

10th November 2020

13th April 2021 the first teaser of The Christmas Pig. John Granger discusses here.

7th June 2021 Kenz from the SEFiles podcast has identified this as George Wombwell’s grave in London’s Highgate Cemetery – the lion depicted here is Nero, his lion who famously refused to fight. This doesn’t appear to be a stock photo (and there are many) so this may be a personally taken photograph.

12th October 2021

4th March 2022 Bill Reeves from Strikefans.com has identified the source as this website. John Granger has discussed here, and by Lindsay on Strikefans.com here.

19th April 2022 A stock photo from here, identified by Twitter User @LudicrousMonica. The key words for this image are: Forest, Wood, Brushwood, Gloomy and Dark. John Granger discusses here.

17th June 2022 A path through Highgate Cemetery. Beatrice Groves has written about this here.

29th August 2022 The Ink Black Heart hardback book cover.

14th December 2022 A Christmas tree with Suffragette Decoration.

2nd January 2023 A view of Cromer Pier from this website and discussed here.

3rd January 2023 A mandala from the I Ching.

21st January 2023 St. John the Baptist Church in Aylmerton, Norfolk. Discussed here.

Comments

  1. Fabulous work Nick!

    This is so helpful for working out whether – as with St John’s Gate – she changes her header according to the book she is writing; or whether – as with the Faerie Queene – it is the book she is editing. From the dates I’ve noted in my posts below, three of the header dates given are precisely correct, the St Johns Gate one day out; natal chart & tarot cards a few days out. Links to my blogs that discuss quite a few of these headers below!

    St John’s gate:
    ‘On November 15, 2018, Rowling changed her Twitter header to a 19th-century print of St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell. We know she was writing Troubled Blood at this time as she tweeted a week later, “I’ll do the column if you write Robin’s internal monologue on the morning of her 29th birthday” (Nov. 23, 2018).
    https://www.mugglenet.com/2020/09/troubled-blood-in-london/

    25 Jan 2020 (natal chart) & 23 Nov 2019 (tarot cards):
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/beatrice-groves-blood-relations-and-troubled-blood-a-hint-from-tom-burke/

    The Faerie Queene header, which I discuss here, went up on March 20 2020
    https://www.mugglenet.com/2020/03/the-faerie-queene-and-the-fifth-strike-novel-troubled-blood/

    I discuss the two white horse twitter headers here:
    https://www.mugglenet.com/2018/09/lethal-white-horses/

    And the pelican bestiary image here:
    http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2018/07/16/time-travelling-back-to-2005-new-j-k-rowling-interview-material-part-2/

    The Zhangjiajie National Forest Park (correct date of 7 Jan 2019) mentioned here:
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/beatrice-groves-the-qilin-in-the-secrets-of-dumbledore/
    – are we looking at the same park in the April 2018? Interesting if so in the writing/editing process for Secrets of Dumbledore.

    Also see this one on the Capricorn star burst – and in the comments below HogPro reader Claudia looks to have hit the nail on the head here predicting we’d see Aberforth in FB3!
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/new-rowling-twitter-header-and-cameo-capricorn-and-the-battle-of-hogwarts/

  2. Here are the HogPro posts on Rowling Twitter Headers I found in a quick search of the site — they are in a rough chronological order.

    2016
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/interpreting-fantastic-beasts-part-4-five-merchandise-tie-ins-revelations-newsbreaks-at-rowlings-site-twitter/

    2017
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/the-three-fates-meet-the-weird-sisters-cormoran-strike-harry-potter-and-the-question-of-fate-free-will-and-choice/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/jkrs-new-swan-twitter-feed-header/

    2018
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/lethal-white-the-white-horse-evidence/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/name-that-jkr-twitter-header-ceiling/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/lethal-white-parliament-prediction-hit/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/rowling-posts-demonic-twitter-cameo/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/new-rowling-twitter-header-what-is-it/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/new-rowling-twitter-header-what-is-it-2/

    2019
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/new-rowling-twitter-header-what-is-it-are-we-off-to-china-in-beasts3/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/new-rowling-twitter-header-and-cameo-capricorn-and-the-battle-of-hogwarts/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/literary-allusion-in-cormoran-strike-curious-case-of-yeats-leda-the-swan/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/guest-post-lethal-white-and-strike5/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/fantastic-beasts-3-in-brazil-on-schedule/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/new-tarot-themed-twitter-header/

    2020
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/rowling-finishes-strike5-big-hint-aleister-crowleys-horoscope-header/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/rowlings-new-twitter-header-means-the-faerie-queene-is-a-strike-5-theme/

    2021
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/the-christmas-pig-new-rowling-story/

    2022
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/all-j-k-rowlings-twitter-headers/
    https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/all-j-k-rowlings-twitter-headers/

  3. Nick Jeffery says

    Thank you John and Beatrice! I’ve added the links, my hope is this will become a real resource.

  4. Hi Nick,

    Thanks for putting together such a fantastic and comprehensive resource! (Big high fives to Beatrice and Nick as well!) I’ve done some searching to help with some of the headers missing descriptions-
    23rd February 2017- painting “Vanitas, Still Life with Books and Manuscripts and a Skull” by Dutch still life painter Evert Collier: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edwaert_Collier_-_Vanitas_-_Still_Life_with_Books_and_Manuscripts_and_a_Skull_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
    11th April 2018 – A stock photo of the Valerie De La Luna in Chile- https://worldtourtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Valerie-De-La-Luna-e1612304323928.jpg
    7th June 2021 – I was unable to find an exact match for this, which leads me to believe she took this picture herself, but this is George Wombwell’s grave in London’s Highgate Cemetery – the lion depicted here is Nero, his lion who famously refused to fight: https://live.staticflickr.com/381/18595418369_da7f0e9a5a_b.jpg
    13th December 2017 – Another personal photo, this time of Edinburgh Castle during winter: https://a.cdn-hotels.com/gdcs/production20/d511/27bf26bb-e498-4caf-a5b7-cdb379680e4c.jpg

    Hopefully this helps! Stunning work, as always.

    -Kenz

  5. Nick Jeffery says

    Brilliant! Thanks Kenz, I’ve added them all. I think the Edinburgh Castle image is from this photo: http://britgeopeople.blogspot.com/2012/12/old-snow-from-bgs-scotland.html

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