Rotor Named Editor at Penguin

NEW YORK, NY/4/10/06—Penguin Classics has named Elda Rotor as executive editor of Penguin Classics, an imprint of Penguin Books. She comes to Penguin from Oxford University Press where she was senior editor. She’ll report to Stephen Morrison, publisher and editor-in-chief of Penguin Books.

Smith Joins Little, Brown

NEW YORK, NY/4/11/06—Andrew Smith has been named vice president of marketing and associate publisher of Little Brown’s Young Readers division, effective May 3. He served at Candlewick Press before joining Little Brown. He’ll report to new Little Brown Publisher Megan Tingley.

Dan Brown Prevails in Lawsuit

NEW YORK, NY/4/10/2006Dan Brown has prevailed in the London lawsuit over whether he plagiarized “the architecture” of Michael Baigent’s and Richard Leigh’s The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail when Brown wrote The Da Vinci Code.

Baigent and Leigh claimed Brown had used their theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married and produced a child. The Court found the case in Brown’s favor. Brown, whose mass market edition of The Da Vinci Code was released in March, said the verdict had far-reaching implications for authors everywhere. In a statement from Brown’s publisher Random House, Brown said “A novelist must be free to draw appropriately from historical works without fear that he’ll be sued and forced to stand in a courtroom facing allegations that call into question his very integrity as a person.” Sales of Baigent’s and Leigh’s nonfiction book have soared as a result of the international publicity surrounding the case. Baigent’s newest book, The Jesus Papers, is also expected to sell well.