JK Rowling has stressed her disappointment at plans to publish an unofficial reference book about the Harry Potter series, court papers have shown.The authoress has filed a suit in New York City against Steve Vander Ark, a Harry Potter fan, and publisher RDR books for trying to publish the ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’, a 400-page reference book compiled from Vander Ark’s website of the same name.

In her US district court declaration, the 42-year-old expressed her frustration that “a former fan has tried to co-opt my work for financial gain”.

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“I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books,” she wrote in court papers filed on Wednesday.

“I believe that RDR’s book constitutes a Harry Potter rip-off of the type I have spent years trying to prevent, and that both I, as the creator of this world, and fans of Harry Potter would be exploited by its publication.”

She added: “I feel intensely protective, firstly of the literary world I spent so long creating, and secondly, of the fans who bought my books in such large numbers.”

Though Rowling has supported unpublished fan-fiction, she added that the publication of the ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’ could damage relations between authors and their fans, and cause authors to impose greater protection on their work.

An RDR statement on its website said it was “determined to publish this book for the benefit of Harry Potter fans everywhere”.

The publisher said it “believes Ms Rowling, who has championed the ‘Lexicon’ for years, will love reading the book just as much as she does the website on which it is based”.

Rowling and the Harry Potter copyright-holder Warner Bros successfully delayed the publication of the book last year. End of story