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Source: Albuquerque News
Author: BANG Showbiz
The estate of little-
Jacobs' died in 1997 without ever reading a 'Harry Potter' novel – the first title
in the hit series was published the same year – but his son and grandson are convinced
Rowling studied and duplicated his 36-
They claim Jacobs' sent his manuscript to Christopher Little, the literary agent at Bloomsbury Publishing who went on to represent Rowling, but it was rejected.
The estate is now suing Rowling and Bloomsbury Publishing for plagiarism, lodging legal proceedings at Britain's High Court.
Legal papers filed by Jacobs' estate list similarities between the books, including
"shared references" to a wizard train and prison and a magical contest where the
boy wizard must rescue human hostages taken captive by half-
In addition to £500 million ($820 million) in damages, the estate is seeking an injunction to prevent further sales of the offending book, or a share in the tome's profits.
Rowling is estimated to have a personal fortune of £560 million ($918 million).
Bloomsbury Publishing has branded the allegations “unfounded, unsubstantiated and untrue”.
A statement said: "JK Rowling had never heard of Adrian Jacobs nor seen, read or
heard of his book ‘Willy the Wizard’ until this claim was first made in 2004 -
"‘Willy the Wizard’ is a very insubstantial booklet running to 36 pages which had very limited distribution. The central character of ‘Willy the Wizard’ is not a young wizard and the book does not revolve around a wizard school. This claim is without merit and will be defended vigorously."
