'Original Muggles' Reappear

The Legend of Rah and the Muggles, the first book in a trilogy by Pennsylvania author Nancy Stouffer, will be reissued in May by Thurman House. Stouffer made news early last year when she claimed that Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling had stolen her ideas. Scholastic Books and Warner Brothers sued Stouffer over the statements, and she, in turn, countersued. In the 1980s, Stouffer wrote and illustrated Muggles and a series about the characters Lily and Larry Potter, which will be reissued as the Larry Potter Storybooks. (Stouffer's Web site is at www.realmuggles.com .) "Unfortunately," says Harry Potter publisher Scholastic, "nowadays success seems to breed not only imitation but also litigation." Allan Hirsh III, president of Ottenheimer Publishers, Thurman House's parent company, says that when Stouffer's books were originally published by Ande in the 1980s, they were storybooks with activities. "We are repackaging them into a novel format," he says. The Legend of Rah and the Muggles, the first of the "Original Muggles" trilogy, will appear in hardcover in May, with the two others to follow in 2002 and 2003. The first four of 12 Larry Potter Storybooks will appear this September.