A manuscript of Grey, EL James’s tale of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele told from the male perspective, has gone missing, with publishers fearing piracy and leaks

Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James’s forthcoming Grey, the story of the relationship between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele told from his rather than her perspective – “Unlike any woman he has known before, shy, unworldly Ana seems to see right through him – past the business prodigy and the penthouse lifestyle to Christian’s cold, wounded heart” – is sitting pretty at the top of Amazon’s charts this morning, just over a week before its release.

But it turns out that one reader couldn’t wait until 18 June to get their hands on it: the Daily Mail reports that a manuscript was found to be missing yesterday, and “it is feared thieves may be planning to release pirated versions of the novel, or sell extracts to media outlets”.

Grey’s publisher Penguin Random House wouldn’t comment this morning “due to an ongoing police investigation”, but this is not the first time an early copy of a much-anticipated work has been swiped. In 2007, the final novel in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series was leaked online days before its release, despite massive security. In 2003, a forklift truck driver stole pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, concealing them in his lunchbox, and attempted to sell them to the Sun.

The latest twist in the James saga is also eerily reminiscent of what happened to Stephenie Meyer, whose Twilight series was the original inspiration for Fifty Shades, back in 2008. Meyer was writing a fresh take on the story, from the perspective of the vampire Edward Cullen rather than the human teenager Bella, when a partial draft of Midnight Sun was stolen and made available online. The novelist, distressed by the leak, decided to stop writing the novel.

“I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely,” she said at the time, making the first draft available online herself.

But the publisher assured fans this morning that Christian’s take on Ana’s “tangle of shapely limbs and tumbling brown hair” “will be published on June 18th - Christian Grey’s birthday - as planned”.