From the Person who posted: J.K.Rowling & The Legend of Rah and the Muggles

[hamster8 at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 14520

Simon said ...

"It would be interesting to know how you think this copying happened. 
By the admission of the author of The Legend of Rah and the Muggles 
her books were only published in the US and at that I believe I am 
correct in saying only in one US state.

They have definitely never been properly published in the UK (yes I 
have checked, I have access to all books ever published in the UK and 
a catalogue indexing them), and they have never made it to the 
Library of Congress (?) in the US. Members of this group have before 
now tried to obtain copies, but have never managed.

There are similarities, but it is possible to find similarities 
between many books. Harry is one of the most popular boys names in 
the UK (and has been for quite a while). Larry seems to be a fairly 
common US boy's name.  Potter is a common British surname.
Muggles, as a word, has appeared in many different places and is used 
to mean something totally different in the two sets of books."

To which Al decides to add ... now I may well be wrong, but doesn't 
US law require a copy of every single book published in the States to 
be lodged with the Library of Congress?  I was under the impression 
that it was roughly the same system that gets a book put in the 
British Library, and three others, Trinity College, Dublin is one of 
them, Oxford is one, obviously, else Simon wouldn't have access to it 
(I assume) and I think Cambridge do the same.  So surely the Library 
of Congress *must* have a copy.  Can any List-Americans help out here?

I have never seen or read Stouffer's book myself, but as far as I'm 
concerned, this is fairly old news, right?  Didn't the lawsuit get 
thrown out or something?  I believe you can buy copies, or at least 
find information on where to get them on Stouffer's website, and 
there's a link to that over at the UHPFC (at least, there was the 
last time I was in that neighbourhood) ... of course, being fairly 
new around these parts, and only very occasionally de-lurking *waves 
at all the people who didn't know I was on this list* I may be 
echoing stuff that's been said before.

Harry, incidentally, is only popular right now because of the books.  
It made it into our top ten in the UK this year, but last year was at 
something like 20, and before that hadn't risen above 40 for at least 
30-40 years - last being popular in the 60's.

As far as I'm concerned it was only ever a paper thin attempt to get 
on the HP bandwagon.  Authors copy each other unwillingly and 
unknowingly all the time - the plot of a story I wrote when I was 
eight surfaced in a kid's book by no less than Anthea Turner some 
years later ... so as it's her, maybe I should sue.  Hmm.

Thanks for hearing me out!
*Al saunters vaguely westwards*