If you thought scandals were the domain of Hollywood only, then think again!
The literary world is full of all kinds of scandals! From plagiarism, so fake memoirs and illicit affairs of all sorts. This article is a compilation of some of the greatest scandals of the last century and a half.
The stolen manuscripts
In 2008 Twilight-fever ran rampant and the author, Stephenie Meyer, wanted to capitalize on the fame by re-writing the original book, only this time changing the narrator from the female lead, Bella, to the male lead, Edward. Sadly, the twelve first chapters of the book, to be called Midnight Sun, were stolen and released online, making Meyer claim that she would never finish it, and thereby breaking the hearts of many fans.
In 2015 history seemed to repeat itself. This time, the stolen manuscript belonged to E.L. James, the writer of 50 Shades of Grey. The manuscript was a re-write of the original book, but the narrator had been changed from the female lead, Anastasia, to the male lead, Christian... Coincidence?
While Meyer claimed she would never finish her manuscript, Midnight Sun is finally hitting bookstores on 4th August 2020. No one knows why the E.L. James manuscript was stolen. It has never surfaced anywhere online and some people speculate, that the story was actually just one big publicity stunt. Or flop, really.
The Hitler Diaries
In April 1983 a great discovery was made. According to the German magazine, Stern, they were in possession of Adolf Hitler's personal diaries, which had supposedly been lost in a place crash in 1945. With claims that the diaries would mean a total rewrite of our understanding of Hitler, the world was in uproar. For two weeks at least.
It only took two weeks for the diaries to be exposed as fakes - pretty bad ones too. They were written in haste by Konrad Kujau, a small-time crook and forgerer. Kujau had copied portions of text word for word from the anthology Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945—The Chronicle of a Dictatorship.
Stern spent 9.3 million Deutsche marks to acquire the complete 60 volumes of the fake diary.
The Twitter fighting Sarah Dessen
Sometimes critique can be hard to handle. In November 2019, American YA author Sarah Dessen felt the sting of critique, when Northern State University was picking their Common Read picks of the year. Here, a graduate named Brooke Nelson was quoted in a small local paper saying, that she joined the committee with the simple aim of preventing any of Sarah Dessen's books to make it onto the list. The author took offence - and took to Twitter. "Authors are people too," she wrote in anguish. At first, other authors backed her in her attack of Nelson. But soon the power of Twitter twisted sympathy in Nelson's direction. Dessen was accused of online bullying and not being able to just let the little stuff go. She later deleted her original Tweet and issued an official apology to Nelson, who, coincidentally, was a linguistics major specializing in online harassment.
Three Cups of Tea and a suicide
In 2007 the autobiography, Three Cups of Tea, of humanitarian Greg Mortensen was released. In it, Mortensen recounts the story of how he turned from being a professional nurse into a humanitarian, working to build schools and educate girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to Mortensen, he and his non-profit organisation was responsible for building 121 schools and educating more than 64,000 children. The book remained on the New York Times' bestseller list for four years. Then in 2011 scandal hit. It was alleged that many of the so called facts reported in the biography were in fact fabrications. According to allegations, certain scenes in the book never took place and many of the purported schools had never been built, had been abandoned shortly after being built or never actually functioned as schools. Mortensen stood firmly by his book but his co-author, David Oliver Relin, found it harder to face the allegations. Relin, already suffering from depression when the allegations started flying, reportedly broke under the criticism. In November 2013 he committed suicide by stepping out in front of a freight train.
Helen Keller accused of plagiarism
In 1891 the then 11 year old Helen Keller became a published short story author. Her story, The Frost King, was published in The Mentor, the alumni magazine of Heller's school, Perkins School of the Blind. One unnamed Perkins teacher read the story and remarked an uncanny resemblance to a story by Margaret Canby called "Frost Fairies". Both stories were then printed side by side in the Gazelle with a comment by the editor saying that he believed it to be an attempt at fraud. Keller herself was devastated at the accusations, claiming that she didn't remember ever having read or having been read the original story. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, proposed that the substitute teacher, and Sullivan's own mentor, Sophia Hopkins might have read Keller the story when the girl was eight. Keller could then, unbeknownst to even herself, have absorbed the story and imagined it her own. Canby herself even weighed in and proclaimed Keller's story superior to hers. An in-house 'trial' at Perkins was set up to get to the bottom of the scandal and after a prolonged debate, the vote was narrowly cast in Keller's favour. The relation between the Perkins administration and Keller and Sullivan was never the same, though. In 1903 Mark Twain summed up the whole debacle describing it as "owlishly idiotic and grotesque"
Oprah Winfrey and the fictionalized memoirs
Oprah Winfrey might be the most famous book club host of all time. With that in mind it's no wonder that her endorsement carries great weight to authors - when Winfrey praises your book, you're as good as made. And the reverse is true as well, if Winfrey condemns your book you better get out of town. Sometimes both things can happen to a single author, which both James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces, and Herman Rosenblat, author of the Holocaust memoir, Angel at the Fence, learned the hard way. Both books had been praised to the skies by a thrilled Winfrey. But the praise stopped when she learned that both books had been heavily embellished - and in some regards even completely fictionalized. Winfrey was not amused - and when she was done with these books, neither were the authors.
The fake New York Times Bestseller
The power of Social Media is perhaps best demonstrated by this story of the Fake New York Times Bestseller. In 2017 the unknown Handbook for Mortals by the debut author Lani Sarem flew to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. But the popularity was short lived. A group of dedicated YA readers and writers on Twitter started questioning the popularity - why hadn't they ever heard of this bestselling YA book? Why weren't bloggers writing about it? Why were there no reviews of it? The group started an investigation. Writer Jeremy West began digging and shared messages he had received from bookshops, who reported that they had been contacted by someone asking if they were an NYT-reporting shop. When they answered in the affirmative, a bulk order of Handbook for Mortals was placed with the shop. Author Phil Stamper, who was also a part of the investigative group, remarked that "you shouldn't be able to buy your way on to the @nytimes list. But here we are.” Shortly thereafter the New York Times removed the book from their bestseller list. It now enjoys a record low rating on Goodreads of 1.28 stars. The YA community does not forgive a stunt like that.
Truman Capote's murderous love
In November 1959, four members of the Clutter family - father, mother and two teenage children - where brutally murdered in their home in Holcomb, Kansas. Two ex-convicts, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, were found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death. The sentences were carried out in 1965. If this story sounds familiar at all, it's probably because you've read Truman Capote's classical true crime masterpiece In Cold Blod. When in the process of researching the book, Capote managed to conduct extensive interviews with one of the murderers, Perry Smith. Capote and Smith formed a strong, true connection which some have later speculated might have been actual, romantic love. After Smith had been hung for his crime, Capote didn't seem to be holding up well, taking next to no pleasure in all of his outward success. On the inside he was hurting and suffering. Was it love or just a strong friendship? Accounts vary, but it was a true one all the same.
The lost manuscript that shouldn't have been published
If I ask you to think of a great American classic that you had to read in school, chances are you might think of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Many people have been saddened by the fact that Lee claimed to never wanting to write or publish another book. But then in 2015 the unthinkable happened! It was announced that a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird was going to be released in the summer. People were ecstatic and Amazon reported that it was their 'most pre-ordered book' since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Publicity was all over this supposed sequel, but once it hit stands the publicity turned into scandal. It quickly became clear that this was no sequel - it was, in fact, an early draft what later became Lee's classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. Rumors started to fly that Lee, who was at this point 89 years old, had been forced into publishing this book against her expressed will. Her neighbor, Marja Mills, remarked on the fact that the announcement of the publication came just two months after the passing of Lee's sister Alice who had, Mills claimed, been Lee's "gatekeeper, advisor, protector." Many others joined the disapproving chorus, claiming that this book should never have been published - especially not without context and with false marketing.
Accusations of racial insensitivity
The YA community has been the setting of several scandals in the last couple of years. One of the more recent ones was from 2019 and involved the much anticipated YA fantasy book Blood Heir by debut author Amélie Wen Zhao. Zhao was excited for her first novel to be published in the summer of 2019, but the excitement was marred when people started talking of racial insensitivity, anti-black sentiments and to some lesser extent plagiarism. The negative press started on Twitter (where else?) and resulted in Zhao postponing her book indefinitely and offering an apology for any slight given. Zhao's publisher, Random House Children's Book, backed her, stating that they looked forward to working with her still. Once the uproar died down slightly, the publication was back on. Several changes had been made to ensure diversity and representation and the publisher invited scholars to review it and make sure that there was no content that could possibly upset any racial groups. The book was finally published in November 2019.
Howard Hugh's "autobiography" sent Clifford Irving to jail
By 1958, the eclectic millionaire Howard Hughes had become a recluse. So when journalist Clifford Irving claimed to have been contacted by Hughes in 1970 and asked to ghost write his autobiography, his publisher McGraw-Hill was ecstatic. They paid him an advance of $100,000 and an additional $400,000 to be paid to Hughes. Irving managed to have this bargained up to $765,000. McGraw-Hill wrote the check out to H. R. Hughes. Irving's Swiss wife Edith, took the check and deposited it into a Swiss bank account under the fake name 'Helga R. Hughes'. When Hughes' companies got wind of the impending biography, they immediately questioned the authenticity. The handwritten letters that Irving claimed to have from Hughes were examined by a firm of handwriting experts and declared authentic. Irving also agreed to a lie detector test, which indicated inconsistencies but no lies. In 1972 Hughes himself got involved when he arranged a telephone interview with seven journalists. He maintained that he had never met Irving, and though Irving claimed that the call had been made by an imposter, it soon became clear that he was the fraud. Irving and his wife were indicted for fraud as was their conspirator, who had created the false letters. Irving served 17 months in prison and he voluntarily returned the $765,000 to his publishers.