You probably already know of the Nabokov scandal that broke earlier this month. If not, the full story is on the Guardian site: a German literary scholar by the name of Michael Marr reckons that the great, great (in fact, my personal greatest) man may have used a 1916 novel, also called Lolita, as the basis for his own controversial novel of the same title, written in 1955.

There are extraordinary similarities in the plot lines of both books, but as Mr Marr wrote for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

'Unfortunately, there is not a logical rule which would tell us when a certain number of coincidences stop being chance.'

The cynical amongst us may draw their own conclusions, but I prefer to vote for my main man’s clean bill of originality.

However, how's this for a coincidence. In a recent article about Lit Idol, the London Book Fair’s media-grabbing equivalent of Pop Idol, we mentioned a book by Colin Bateman, Chapter and Verse.

The central plot is all about the cynical writing and packaging of a novel for max media sensationalism … and now we read about a ‘dirty book’ from the 60s which was the end result of the er … cynical writing and packaging of a novel for max media sensationalism. Oo-er! Ok, now we’ve pointed out the (alleged) similarities, Colin, we’ll turn the spotlight off. Because it’s a rather amusing story…

Briefly, Mike McGrady, a Newsday editor and writer, was so revolted by the bestselling dross churned out by Jacqueline Susann and her ilk in 1969 that he challenged 24 of his colleagues to secretly write a chapter each of a novel whose 'unremitting emphasis on sex' and total lack of excellence in writing would ensure its success. He was right.

Naked Came the Stranger, by the fictitious Penelope Ashe, a 'demure Long Island housewife' (pwhoar) was a runaway sensation. Up to $1.2 million dollars (today’s value) was split 24 ways as the novel hung on the New York Times bestseller list for 25-plus weeks. Shit-lit history was made.

Just like Colin Bateman’s anti-hero, a sexy young thing was hired to be the ‘author’ and the book’s sex scenes sent the media into a tail-spin. But the writers of Naked Came the Stranger were ultimately exposed, causing an even greater furore, and the 24 journalists were the subject of news madness. Walter Cronkite was flown out in a helicopter to do exclusives and newspapers were calling from all over the world.

McGrady went on to write, among other things, not one but two books about Linda Lovelace, and his own favourite, the story of the making of the Penelope Ashe book. Stranger than Naked, or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun and Profit. Films rights have been bought by Working Title, the English company behind Bridget Jones’ Diary.

Naked Came the Stranger has just been reissued. The book in today’s context will no doubt leave us musing over a time when nipples in a novel were unbelievably risqué, and leave McGrady laughing all the way to the bank.