Publishing giant Hachette is taking author Seth Grahame-Smith to court over latest manuscript they say is ‘in large part an appropriation of a 120-year-old public domain work’

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith is being sued by his publisher for delivering a manuscript that Hachette claims is “an appropriation of a 120-year-old public-domain work”.

Grahame-Smith, who unleashed the zombie mashup on the world with the surprise 2009 hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and went on to write the bestseller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is being taken to court by Hachette for breach of contract. The complaint, which was posted online by Publishers Marketplace, says that the author and publisher made a $4m (£3m) deal in 2010 for Grahame-Smith to deliver two new works, with an initial instalment of $1m paid to the author.

Grahame-Smith delivered the first book, The Last American Vampire, a sequel to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter that was published in January 2015. But according to Hachette, the deadline for delivery of the second was extended from June 2013 to April 2016.

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The complaint says the Grahame-Smith delivered the second manuscript in June 2016, but alleges that the work was “not original to Smith, but instead is in large part an appropriation of a 120-year-old public-domain work”, that it “materially varies from the 80,000-100,000 word limit” agreed on, and that it “is not comparable in style and quality to Smith’s wholly original bestseller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”. That novel imagined the 16th US president as the nemesis of the forces of the undead during the civil war.

Hachette is suing Grahame-Smith and his company Baby Gorilla for at least $500,000 – half of the advance it paid him six years ago, plus interest – saying that “by delivering a manuscript that varied so materially and substantially from that described in the agreement”, he is in breach of contract.