The following is a list ofbooks accused ofplagiarism, or proven to have been plagiarized. Plagiarism is an act in which a party steals intellectual property from another party, claiming it as their own. This list is not exhaustive and may not reflect recent publications, includingself-published and non-notable books.
Books accused of plagiarism
[edit]- The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1888) byRichard Francis Burton: accused of plagiarism by various critics and academics, including Thomas Wright.[1]
- The Fixer (1966) byBernard Malamud: Descendants of Mendel Beilis have long argued that in writingThe Fixer, Malamud plagiarized from the 1926 English edition of Beilis's memoir,The Story of My Sufferings. One of Beilis's sons made such claims in correspondence to Malamud whenThe Fixer was first published. A 2011 edition of Beilis's memoir, co-edited by one of his grandsons, claims to identify 35 instances of plagiarism by Malamud.[2]
- The Jungle Book (1894) byRudyard Kipling: In a letter written and signed by Kipling in or around 1895, states Alison Flood inThe Guardian, Kipling confesses to borrowing ideas and stories in theJungle Book: "I am afraid that all that code in its outlines has been manufactured to meet 'the necessities of the case': though a little of it is bodily taken from (Southern) Esquimaux rules for the division of spoils," Kipling wrote in the letter. "In fact, it is extremely possible that I have helped myself promiscuously but at present cannot remember from whose stories I have stolen."[3]
Books that have been plagiarized
[edit]- Sloppy Firsts andSecond Helpings, two books byMegan McCafferty, reportedly plagiarized byHarvard student and genre fiction prodigyKaavya Viswanathan in her own novelHow Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got A Life. This was extensively covered by the media, with McCafferty comparing sentences in her own two books verbatim to the plagiarizing novel of Viswanathan's.[4][5] Viswanathan admitted to the phenomenon of "unconscious plagiarism" in her book (this has never been proven to exist).[6]
