Richard Leigh (author)
Encyclopedia
Richard Harris Leigh (16 August 1943 – 21 November 2007) was a novelist and short story writer born in New Jersey
, USA to a British father and an American mother, who spent most of his life in the UK. Leigh earned a BA from Tufts University
, a Master's degree from the University of Chicago
, and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
while living in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Leigh introduced Baigent to the alleged Rennes-le-Chateau
mystery in France. In the same decade he met British television scriptwriter Henry Lincoln
who was lecturing at a summer school. The three discovered that they shared a common interest in the Knights Templar
, and took their Jesus bloodline theory on the road. The three developed this lecture series into their 1982 book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
.
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
popularised the idea that the true object of the quest for the Holy Grail
was to find secret descendants of Jesus
and Mary Magdalene
. This bloodline is stated to have later married into a Frankish royal dynasty, the Merovingians
, and to be championed and protected by a secret society known as the Priory of Sion
. These theories were later used as a basis for Dan Brown
's international best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code
.
The day after publication, the authors had a public clash on BBC
television with the Bishop of Birmingham
and Marina Warner. The book rapidly climbed the best-seller charts, and the authors published a sequel, The Messianic Legacy, in 1986.
The book has been described as "a work thoroughly debunked by scholars and critics alike".
In 1991 Leigh published The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
, co-authored with Baigent. The book follows the controversial theories of Robert Eisenman
regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls
.
Two books of Leigh's fictional works have been published: Erceldoune & Other Stories (2006), and Grey Magic (2007).
Leigh's sister is Liz Greene
, an author and astrologer.
, were incorporated in the best-selling American novel The Da Vinci Code
, by Dan Brown
.
In March 2006, Baigent and Leigh filed suit in a British court against Brown's publisher, Random House
, claiming copyright infringement
. On 7 April 2006 High Court
judge Peter Smith
rejected the claim. On 28 March 2007, Baigent and Leigh lost their appeal, and were faced with legal bills of about 3 million pounds.
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, USA to a British father and an American mother, who spent most of his life in the UK. Leigh earned a BA from Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
, a Master's degree from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Career
Leigh met his frequent co-author Michael BaigentMichael Baigent
Michael Baigent is an author and speculative theorist who co-wrote a number of books that question mainstream perceptions of history and the life of Jesus. He is best known as co-writer of the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail....
while living in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Leigh introduced Baigent to the alleged Rennes-le-Chateau
Rennes-le-Château
Rennes-le-Château is a commune in the Aude department in Languedoc in southern France.This small French hilltop village is known internationally, and receives tens of thousands of visitors per year, for being at the center of various conspiracy theories, and for being the location of an alleged...
mystery in France. In the same decade he met British television scriptwriter Henry Lincoln
Henry Lincoln
Henry Lincoln is an English author, television presenter, scriptwriter and former Supporting actor. He co-wrote three Doctor Who multi-part serials in the 1960s, and —starting in the 1970s— authored a series of books and inspired documentaries for the British television channel BBC2,...
who was lecturing at a summer school. The three discovered that they shared a common interest in the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
, and took their Jesus bloodline theory on the road. The three developed this lecture series into their 1982 book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
.
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
popularised the idea that the true object of the quest for the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
was to find secret descendants of Jesus
Jesus bloodline
A Jesus bloodline is a hypothetical sequence of lineal descendants of the historical Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or some other woman, usually portrayed as his alleged wife or a hierodule...
and Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
. This bloodline is stated to have later married into a Frankish royal dynasty, the Merovingians
Merovingian dynasty
The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the 5th century. Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family...
, and to be championed and protected by a secret society known as the Priory of Sion
Priory of Sion
The Prieuré de Sion, translated from French as Priory of Sion, is a name given to multiple groups, both real and fictitious. The most notorious is a fringe fraternal organisation, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard...
. These theories were later used as a basis for Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
's international best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
.
The day after publication, the authors had a public clash on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television with the Bishop of Birmingham
Bishop of Birmingham
The Bishop of Birmingham heads the Church of England diocese of Birmingham, in the Province of Canterbury, in England.The diocese covers the North West of the historical county of Warwickshire and has its see in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, where the seat of the diocese is located at the...
and Marina Warner. The book rapidly climbed the best-seller charts, and the authors published a sequel, The Messianic Legacy, in 1986.
The book has been described as "a work thoroughly debunked by scholars and critics alike".
In 1991 Leigh published The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception is a book of non-fiction by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Rejecting the established, peer-reviewed consensus that the Dead Sea scrolls were the work of a marginal Jewish apocalyptic movement, and following primarily the thesis of Robert Eisenman, the...
, co-authored with Baigent. The book follows the controversial theories of Robert Eisenman
Robert Eisenman
Robert Eisenman is an American Biblical scholar, theoretical writer, historian, archaeologist, and "road" poet. He is currently Professor of Middle East Religions, Archaeology, and Islamic Law and director of the Institute for the Study of...
regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
.
Two books of Leigh's fictional works have been published: Erceldoune & Other Stories (2006), and Grey Magic (2007).
Leigh's sister is Liz Greene
Liz Greene
Liz Greene, is an American-British astrologer, psychologist and author. She is the sister of the late author Richard Leigh...
, an author and astrologer.
Dan Brown suit
Some of the ideas presented in Baigent's earlier book The Holy Blood and the Holy GrailThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
, were incorporated in the best-selling American novel The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
, by Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
.
In March 2006, Baigent and Leigh filed suit in a British court against Brown's publisher, Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
, claiming copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. On 7 April 2006 High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
judge Peter Smith
Peter Smith (judge)
Sir Peter Winston Smith , styled The Hon Mr Justice Peter Smith, is a Judge of the High Court of Justice in England and Wales, appointed to that office on 15 April 2002 and assigned to the Chancery Division...
rejected the claim. On 28 March 2007, Baigent and Leigh lost their appeal, and were faced with legal bills of about 3 million pounds.
Co-written with Michael Baigent and Henry Lincoln
- The Holy Blood and the Holy GrailThe Holy Blood and the Holy GrailThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
, 1982, UK ISBN 0-09-968241-9- U.S. paperback: Holy Blood, Holy Grail, 1983, Dell. ISBN 0-440-13648-2
- The Messianic Legacy, 1986
Co-written with Michael Baigent
- The Dead Sea Scrolls DeceptionThe Dead Sea Scrolls DeceptionThe Dead Sea Scrolls Deception is a book of non-fiction by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Rejecting the established, peer-reviewed consensus that the Dead Sea scrolls were the work of a marginal Jewish apocalyptic movement, and following primarily the thesis of Robert Eisenman, the...
, 1991 - The Temple and the LodgeThe Temple and the LodgeThe Temple and the Lodge is a book co-written by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh that claims to trace a link between the suppressed Knights Templar and modern day Freemasonry....
, 1991, ISBN 0-552-13596-8 - Secret Germany: Claus Von Stauffenberg and the Mystical Crusade Against Hitler, 1994
- The Elixir and the Stone: The Tradition of Magic and Alchemy, 1997
- The Inquisition. 1999
Self published
- Erceldoune & Other Stories (2006, ISBN 978-1-4116-9943-4)
- Grey Magic (2007, ISBN 978-0-6151-3733-9).