Chinese Emperor’s Widow Files Copyright Suit

The widow of China’s last emperor lost a lawsuit Friday charging copyright violation of two books she wrote about her late husband, an official newspaper reported.

Li Shuxian, a nurse who married Pu Yi in 1962, 51 years after he lost his throne, wrote “Pu Yi’s Last Years” and “Pu Yi and I.” She charged in her suit that a 1989 book, “The Last Emperor’s Last Years,” copied heavily from her works.

Pu Yi was 6 years old when a revolution toppled him from his throne, ending China’s more than 2,000-year-old imperial system.

In the 1930s, the Japanese installed him as a puppet emperor, and in 1949 the Communist regime threw him in jail. He spent his last years gardening and writing his autobiography. He died in 1967.