It's not funny, or suprising. Now, Ian McEwan has been accused of copying from another novel for his novel, Atonement. In an article for The Guardian McEwan refutes the claim. So, what about these stories of plagiarism and other literary "borrowing."

Is it "old news," as John Mullan suggests in his blog entry for The Guaridan? Mullan says, "Novelists have always borrowed from historical sources. The first great historical novelist, Sir Walter Scott, filled his novels with passages of military description and colourful fragments of local history that he took from other writers. He only acknowledged his debts years afterwards, but was generally admired by contemporaries for stitching the factual material into his romantic yarns."

Do the cases of literary borrowing or misattributions make you question those classics you've known and loved for so many years?