Good morning, Gryffindors – I have some rather shocking news for you today. JK Rowling has been accused of plagiarism in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by the estate of the late author Adrian Jacobs, who filed a claim in London’s High Court today. Here’s what the claim accuses her of doing:
….substantial portions of Rowling’s fourth novel in the boy-wizard series are similar to Jacobs’ 1987 booklet The Adventures of Willy the Wizard — No 1 Livid Land. The Jacobs estate claims that the notion of wizards traveling on trains was originally conceived by Jacobs, though the bulk of their argument seems to stem from Goblet of Fire’s central plot element of a wizard tournament.
According to a statement from the estate: “Both Willy and Harry are required to work out the exact nature of the main task of the contest which they both achieve in a bathroom assisted by clues from helpers, in order to discover how to rescue human hostages imprisoned by a community of half-human, half-animal fantasy creatures.”
Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury, released a statement saying that “this claim is without merit and will be defended vigorously.” I’ll have more as it becomes available, but I think it’s pretty obvious that this claim has little or no merit. She and her publisher are being sued for 500 million pounds, and according to the Daily Mail, the author of this pamphlet “allegedly sent the manuscript to Christopher Little, the literary agent at Bloomsbury Publishing who went on to represent Miss Rowling, but it was rejected….Instead his book was published by a smaller company under the title The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard No 1: Livid Land.
This isn’t the first time that JK Rowling has been accused of stealing ideas from other people: most recently it has been by the author of Ender’s Game. What do you think of this latest claim – does it have the ring of truth, or is just another gold digger?
