Hidden assassin's poison pen

Photo / NZ Herald

The use of libel law by academics to threaten the press has been condemned by a leading literary figure.

Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, spoke out against Orlando Figes, historian and author, after Figes's wife confessed to writing several reviews for Amazon.com, praising her husband's work and trashing that of his rivals.

After Figes's legal advisers had accused the TLS of defamation for first raising the issue, Stothard said: "When academics start using the same techniques as John Terry or other celebrities to try and kill legitimate press comment on issues of general importance, the intellectual life of this country is seriously compromised."

The story broke last week in the Times Literary Supplement, the scrupulously ethical journal of book reviews and cultural evaluation.

In his back-page notebook, "NB", James Campbell discussed a review that had appeared on Amazon, of Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky. It wasn't crazy about the book. In fact it gave it a good kicking: "This is the sort of book that makes you wonder why it was ever published ... Her writing is so dense and pretentious, itself so tangled in literary allusions, that it is hard to follow."

The author of the review lurked behind the nom de plume of "Historian" and the secondary identity, "orlando-birkbeck".

As Campbell said, someone writing under the latter name had dealt with other books on Russian topics, including Comrades by Robert Service, professor of history at St Antony's College, Oxford, which orlando-birkbeck described as "awful".

A rare sighting of a positive review by this caustic authority was his, or her, assessment ("Beautifully written ... leaves the reader awed, humbled yet uplifted) of The Whisperers by Orlando Figes.

Campbell reported some online users wondered if "orlando-birkbeck" could be the same person as Figes, who teaches Russian studies at Birkbeck College, London.

The TLS was published on Thursday. On Friday, the Figes story was picked up by the London Review of Books, which revealed "orlando-birkbeck" had also rubbished The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, which topped the bestseller charts in 2008 and won a prize for which Orlando Figes had been shortlisted.

Meanwhile, Rachel Polonsky contacted Robert Service to share her suspicions on the reviews.

Service sent an email to a dozen fellow historians asking for their comments on "how to expunge the practice and expose the practitioners of malign electronic denunciation in countries of free expression" and drawing parallels with the old Soviet practice of destroying academic reputations by anonymous personal attacks.

Soon after, Figes's lawyer contacted Professor Service, threatening libel proceedings. Then Figes himself broke cover. He emailed all the recipients of Service's emails, to complain about the "system" of anonymous postings on the internet.

"I am not the author of the Amazon reviews penned by 'orlando-birkbeck' ..." Polonsky continued her investigations of "orlando-birkbeck" and tracked the DNA of the reviewer on Amazon, discovering the person who ordered books from Amazon using that name was Figes.

On Friday, at 2pm, Figes's lawyer demanded a retraction of the TLS's story, and damages. The journal's editors passed a worrying Friday evening - but Saturday dawned with the news the culprit was none other than Orlando Figes's wife, Stephanie Palmer, a Cambridge law lecturer - as revealed exclusively by the Independent.

"My client's wife wrote the reviews," said Figes's lawyer's statement.

"My client has only just found out about this, this evening. Both he and his wife are taking steps to make the position clear."

Should Amazon continue to allow anonymous reviewers to snipe at authors, when they could be pursuing a malign agenda?

"Anonymity doesn't necessarily produce bad behaviour," said Sir Peter Stothard.

"Reviews in the TLS used to be anonymous and it was often argued that reviewers could be more honest if their work was unsigned. But the real issue is ... the willingness of some writers to use legal intimidation in order to suppress comment."

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