Kate Middleton's cousin embroiled in Zhivago book plagiarism row

Lucy Middleton, who's said to be the Duchess of Cambridge's favourite cousin and is godmother to Prince Louis, is involved in a bitter legal dispute with royal historian Anna Pasternak, the Daily Mail reports.

Middleton is head of legal affairs at publishing giant Penguin Random House, which is being sued by Pasternak over allegations of plagiarism by one of its authors, American novelist Lara Prescott.

Pasternak claims that Prescott, in her bestseller The Secrets We Kept, which told the story of Doctor Zhivago's publication, plagiarised her book Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago. Anna is the great-niece of Russian author Boris Pasternak, who wrote Doctor Zhivago, which was turned into an Oscar-winning epic.

Prescott's literary agent is said to have told Pasternak's husband, psychotherapist Andrew Wallas, three times that the publisher intended to 'crush your wife in court'.

t a procedural court hearing last week, the publisher was represented by no less than seven lawyers. And they claimed recoverable legal costs of £1.2 million, which the judge promptly reduced substantially.

Pasternak has accused Penguin Random House of “cheque-book litigation” and wonders if their tactic is to bully her into submission. By coincidence, Pasternak wrote an infamous article for Tatler on Kate Middleton last year, over which the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge threatened to sue the magazine's publisher, Conde Nast.

Kate Middleton's cousin embroiled in Zhivago book plagiarism row

Lucy Middleton, who's said to be the Duchess of Cambridge's favourite cousin and is godmother to Prince Louis, is involved in a bitter legal dispute with royal historian Anna Pasternak, the Daily Mail reports.

Middleton is head of legal affairs at publishing giant Penguin Random House, which is being sued by Pasternak over allegations of plagiarism by one of its authors, American novelist Lara Prescott.

Pasternak claims that Prescott, in her bestseller The Secrets We Kept, which told the story of Doctor Zhivago's publication, plagiarised her book Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago. Anna is the great-niece of Russian author Boris Pasternak, who wrote Doctor Zhivago, which was turned into an Oscar-winning epic.

Prescott's literary agent is said to have told Pasternak's husband, psychotherapist Andrew Wallas, three times that the publisher intended to 'crush your wife in court'.

At a procedural court hearing last week, the publisher was represented by no less than seven lawyers. And they claimed recoverable legal costs of £1.2 million, which the judge promptly reduced substantially.

Pasternak has accused Penguin Random House of “cheque-book litigation” and wonders if their tactic is to bully her into submission. By coincidence, Pasternak wrote an infamous article for Tatler on Kate Middleton last year, over which the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge threatened to sue the magazine's publisher, Conde Nast.