J.K. Rowling Accused of Plagiarizing Fourth Potter

Estate of a British author sweeps the Harry Potter creator into ongoing legal dispute

By Natalie Finn Feb 18, 2010 2:30 AMTags
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has come under some heat.

J.K Rowling has been tacked on as a defendant in a lawsuit filed against her U.K. publisher in 2004, which claims that the bestselling author plagiarized part of the fourth book in her über-successful Harry Potter series.

The suit alleges that, in writing Goblet of Fire, Rowling ripped off the 1987 children's book The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No. 1 Livid Land by Adrian Jacobs, who died in 1997.

To which the embattled author says, "Hogwarts," er, "hogwash."

"I am saddened that yet another claim has been made that I have taken material from another source to write Harry," Rowling said in a statement released by her rep to Bloomberg Business Week.

"The fact is I had never heard of the author or the book before the first accusation by those connected to the author's estate in 2004; I have certainly never read the book."

She continued: "The claims that are made are not only unfounded but absurd and I am disappointed that I, and my U.K. publisher Bloomsbury, are put in a position to have to defend ourselves."

Rowling says that counsel for her and Bloomsbury will move immediately for the case to be dismissed for lack of merit.

Jacobs' estate says that it was the late author who came up with the idea of wizard prisons, hospitals and schools, long before Harry's lightning bolt scar was a glimmer in Rowling's eye.

Also mentioned in the suit is that Jacbos and Rowling shared the same literary agent, Christopher Little.

Bloomsbury has denied all accusations of plagiarism on Rowling's part.

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