The publisher of the wildly popular and profitable “Harry Potter” books says it intends to fight a lawsuit alleging author J.K. Rowling stole the idea for them. A statement from Bloomsbury Publishing PLC says the suit alleges Rowling took the idea for the boy wizard from an author named Adrian Jacobs. Bloomsbury said Tuesday that such a plagiarism allegation is “unfounded, unsubstantiated and untrue” and that Rowling had “never heard of Adrian Jacobs nor seen, read, or heard of his book.” Bloomsbury says Jacobs' book, “Willy the Wizard”, had limited distribution.”This claim is without merit and will be defended vigorously.” In an earlier statement, Jacobs' estate said that it had issued proceedings at London's High Court against Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for copyright infringement. It said that Rowling had copied “substantial parts” of “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard - No 1 Livid Land” written by Jacobs in 1987. It added that the plot of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire copied elements of the plot of Willy the Wizard, including a wizard contest, and that the Potter series borrowed the idea of wizards travelling on trains. “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,” the estate statement said. According to the statement, Jacobs had sought the services of literary agent Christopher Little who later became Rowling's agent. Jacobs died “penniless” in a London hospice in 1997, it said. In its response, Bloomsbury said 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, almost seven years after the publication of the first book in the highly publicized Harry Potter series.
