JK Rowling: 'I Won't Top Harry Potter Books'

JK Rowling has said she will never write anything better than the Harry Potter novels.

The seven Harry Potter novels have sold over 450 million copies worldwide - making it the most successful book series of all time.

Speaking during a fundraising event in aid of her children’s charity, Lumos (named after a light-giving spell in the Potter books), Rowling told Sky News: "As far back as 2000 I knew I would never top Harry Potter. I knew that before the series ended.

"If you've had the kind of success that you never expected you can think 'oh no, how dreadful I'll never ever top that', or you can say 'how incredibly marvellous and liberating that I made money beyond my wildest dreams and that I can affect issues I really care about'."

Money raised from the fundraising event in London will help fight the institutionalisation of children into orphanages across Europe, which the charity claims can lead to severe developmental problems.

"There are eight million children globally being raised in institutions and everything we know about institutionalisation tells us it is harmful to children's physical and mental health," Rowling said.

"Drug-taking and suicide are more likely and a lot of these children may be trafficked or end up in the sex trade. To take a child from their family we know must be damaging, it's the worst thing you can do to a child."

She added: "These themes are in the Harry Potter books. Voldemort was himself raised in an institution so, spookily, it was something I was very much thinking about.

"But we've started where the situation is particularly acute in Eastern Europe where there has been a cultural acceptance of institutionalisation that thankfully in the UK we've really overcome."