Emotional J.K. Rowling tells court she felt betrayed by rival's Harry Potter Lexicon

12 April 2012

JK Rowling fought back tears yesterday as she told a New York judge what Harry Potter means to her.

'I don't want to cry because I'm British,' she said, her voice quavering.

The author became emotional while explaining that the Potter books are the centre of her life and the most important thing to her aside from her three children.

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Manhattan: J.K. Rowling arriving for yesterday's hearing

Miss Rowling, 42, was giving evidence against an author and his publisher seeking to sell the Harry Potter Lexicon, a guide to the characters and events in her novels.

She could simply have supplied a statement to the no-jury hearing at the district court in Manhattan, but insisted on flying from her Edinburgh home to deliver her testimony in person.

Describing how she had devoted 17 years to the seven books, she said: 'My prime concern is that the characters mean so much to me.

'It's very difficult for someone who is not a writer to be a creator. The closest, I would say, is how you feel about your children.

The rival: Steve Vander Ark

'These books saved me. It was not just money. They provided security for me. They saved my sanity.

'It was a place I liked to vanish to, a discipline that kept me sane.'

The Harry Potter Lexicon, by Steve Vander Ark, was scheduled for release in November by RDR Books but was halted by a writ from Miss Rowling and her publishers Warner Brothers.

She is seeking a permanent injunction to stop publication, saying it violates her intellectual property rights and copyright.

Miss Rowling, who is now worth more than £500million, was a struggling single mother when she wrote the first Harry Potter book in longhand in an Edinburgh cafe.

In pinstripe jacket and dark dress, she sipped water as she told the court that she had raised £18million for the charity Comic Relief by writing two short guides to Harry Potter.

She plans to write her own encyclopaedia – again giving the royalties to charity – but said she feared no one would want to buy it if they were to spend £12.50 on Vander Ark's Lexicon.

More than 100 books have been published on the back of the Harry Potter phenomenon and Miss Rowling said she had no problem with many of them because they added scholarly comment and analysis. But Vander Ark's had merely copied parts of her work verbatim, without quote marks, she said.

He had added only the occasional 'facetious comment' or incorrect analysis.

At times, she claimed, Vander Ark showed 'utter laziness' in copying her creations and had 'plundered' her own guides Quidditch Through the Ages, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Miss Rowling said she was fighting on behalf of all authors who could see their work plagiarised.

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JK Rowling says she has devoted 17 years to the Harry Potter books and the characters, seen here in the 2001 film The Sorcerer's Stone, are almost like children to her

'I think if the Lexicon is published the floodgates will open and readers will become surfeited with an avalanche of dross and by the time my encyclopaedia comes out everyone will be sick of Harry Potter.'

She added that the stress of the legal action was causing her to struggle writing her new novel – her first since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Vander Ark is expected to testify later this week in what his publishers have described as a 'David and Goliath' battle.

A lawyer for RDR Books, a small publisher based in Muskegon, Michigan, has said it will not challenge the claim by Rowling that much of the material in the lexicon infringed her copyrights.

But it will ask the judge to rule that publication is legal because the book would be used for a greater purpose, such as a scholarly pursuit.

In court papers, Vander Ark, 50, said he was a teacher and school librarian in Michigan before recently moving to London to begin a career as a writer.

He said he joined an adult online discussion group devoted to the Potter books in 1999 before launching his website as a hobby a year later.

Since then, neither Miss Rowling nor her publisher had ever complained about anything on it, he said.

The case continues.

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