4 Notable Instances of Plagiarism in History

In January 2024, Norway’s minister for research and higher education stepped down following allegations that sections of her master’s thesis were copied from another writer’s work without proper credit. She is just one of many prominent individuals who have been accused of plagiarism. Here are some well-known examples of such controversies.

1. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Iconic “I Have a Dream” Address

In 1955, Martin Luther King, Jr. earned his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University, submitting a dissertation that compared the works of theologians Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Weiman. However, years after King’s death, a review revealed that approximately one-third of his thesis was plagiarized from another student’s work.

King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also bore similarities to a colleague’s earlier work. Archibald Carey, Jr., a prominent Chicago minister and politician, had concluded his 1952 Republican National Convention address with an uplifting message:

“From every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and the White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Great Smokies of Tennessee and from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.”

King’s stirring conclusion in Washington—partially improvised during the event—showed clear parallels, suggesting he may have drawn inspiration from Carey’s words:

“And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

“And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it resonate from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will hasten the day when all of God’s children—Black and white, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—can join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

2. John Milton’s Paradise Lost (via William Lauder’s Accusations)

Did the author of Paradise Lost plagiarize? Not really, but William Lauder, a Scottish scholar and infamous forger, tried to convince the world otherwise. In 1747, driven by his own professional disappointments, Lauder published essays in the Gentlemen’s Magazine alleging that Milton had borrowed heavily from other writers for his 1667 masterpiece. Lauder pointed to lesser-known works like Hugo Grotius’s Adamus Exul (1601) and Andrew Ramsay’s Poemata Sacra (1633) as sources of Milton’s supposed theft.

There was just one issue: Lauder had fabricated his “proof” by adding passages from Paradise Lost into the works of other authors. For a time, many academics, including the renowned Samuel Johnson, backed Lauder. However, doubters examined surviving copies of the older texts and quickly realized that Lauder, not Milton, was the fraud. In the end, Lauder’s deceit led to his downfall; he fled to Barbados and died in obscurity.

3. Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Journalist Alex Haley first rose to fame as the co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, released shortly after the civil rights leader’s assassination in 1965. He later published the monumental Roots: The Saga of an American Family in 1976, a work presented as a true account tracing his lineage back to Kunta Kinte, an African man enslaved and brought to America in the 18th century. The book earned Haley a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a highly successful miniseries.

Following the book’s release, numerous historians and writers questioned the authenticity of Haley’s narrative. Notably, author Harold Courlander filed a lawsuit against Haley, accusing him of copying parts of his 1967 novel, The African. Haley later conceded that three passages from Courlander’s work had been incorporated into Roots.

During the trial, Courlander’s attorney highlighted a specific instance of similarity. In The African, enslaved individuals communicated in the fields with the phrase: “well, yooo‐hooo‐ahhooo, don’t you hear me calling you?”

The lawyer claimed that nearly the same phrase appeared in Roots: “the field hands heard a rising, lingering singsong. Yooo‐hooo‐ah‐hooo, don’t you hear me calling you?”

Haley and Courlander resolved the lawsuit through an out-of-court settlement.

4. Stendhal’s The Lives of Haydn, Mozart, and Metastasio

During his lifetime, French author Stendhal (born Marie-Henri Beyle) was better known for his works on art and travel than for his novels. However, his first published book, The Lives of Haydn, Mozart, and Metastasio (1814), contained extensive plagiarism from at least one earlier biography. A critic in the Modern Language Review noted Stendhal’s literary theft:

“[Stendhal] decided to write ... a biography of Haydn, despite knowing almost nothing about the composer’s life or music. He resolved this risky, even absurd challenge by blatantly plagiarizing ... in a rush, he assembled (or rather shamelessly translated) his work, borrowing nearly all of it (without any acknowledgment) from a well-known, though not particularly insightful, Italian biography of Haydn by Giuseppe Carpani, a then-prominent musicologist.”

When faced with undeniable proof of his plagiarism, Stendhal went further by fabricating evidence to clear his name, as the critic explained:

“The author showed no remorse whatsoever; he even fabricated a fictitious brother with an equally provocative alias, simply to mock the outraged Carpani, who was beside himself with fury ... [Stendhal] was fortunate to live in a lenient era; otherwise, he might have quickly faced financial ruin in court.”

At the very least, forgery could have been added to his catalog of literary offenses.