Skip Channel4 main Navigation
Quite simply, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is a phenomenon.
It has sold more than 40 million copies in 150 countries and has been translated into 42 languages. Its mix of secret societies, religion, global conspiracy and codes and symbols has gripped the imagination and led to numerous spin-offs, from the forthcoming game to books debunking or confirming the storyline expounded in the novel.
And the recent court case between Dan Brown and the authors of the book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail has only served to add to the public profile of the book....
It has sold more than 40 million copies in 150 countries and has been translated into 42 languages. Its mix of secret societies, religion, global conspiracy and codes and symbols has gripped the imagination and led to numerous spin-offs, from the forthcoming game to books debunking or confirming the storyline expounded in the novel.
And the recent court case between Dan Brown and the authors of the book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail has only served to add to the public profile of the book....
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
The authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, presented a non-fiction title in the 1982 that argued that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child and that the bloodline of Jesus survives to the present day.
The The Da Vinci Code presents much the same story but weaves it into a fiction with charismatic character Professor Robert Langdon chasing various secret societies and codes across the globe to uncover the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, which turns out not to be a goblet at all.
The pair argued that Brown's book copied ideas from them and sued the publishers, Random House. Unfortunate for them they lost and have been ordered to pay 85% of the company's legal bill, an estimated £1.3m. In an amusing twist the judge on the case, Mr Justice Peter Smith, has himself added a code to the beginning of his judgement by italicising certain characters which then have to be cracked using letter substitution applying the Fibonacci Sequence.
The high profile trial hasn't deterred Dan Brown from tackling controversial issues... he is now reported to be writing a sequel, this time tackling the Freemasons.
The high profile trial hasn't deterred Dan Brown from tackling controversial issues... he is now reported to be writing a sequel, this time tackling the Freemasons.
