An extraordinary academic controversy, involving top scholars from Cambridge, Oxford, and London came to a head this week amidst dramatic revelations.

Professor Orlando Figes of the Department of History, Classics, and Archaeology at Birbeck College, London, revealed that the anonymous online reviewer trashing the works of his rivals was, in fact, his wife, Dr Stephanie Palmer, herself a Senior Lecturer of Law at Cambridge.

According to Professor Figes’ lawyer, the professor had no knowledge of his wife’s involvement in the matter.

The startling saga began last week when renowned scholar of Russian history and culture Dr Rachel Polonsky noticed that an anonymous reviewer using the moniker ‘Historian’ had left scathing reviews of her new book, Molotov’s Magic Lantern, on the Amazon UK website, calling it "dense", "pretentious", and the "sort of book that makes you wonder why it was ever published".

Upon further investigation, Dr Polonsky discovered that the same reviewer had been writing disparaging reviews for several years, some of them under a secondary moniker called ‘Orlando-Birbeck’. The reviews have since then been deleted from the website.

Among the other scholars who found themselves on the receiving end of Historian’s scorching critiques was Robert Service, Professor of Russian History at Oxford, whose 2009 biography of Leon Trotsky was lambasted as being "rubbish" and "an awful book".

Dr Polonsky’s suspicions grew further when she noticed that the same reviewer had left highly favourable reviews of Professor Figes’ works. Writing about his 2007 book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia, Historian gushed that the work was "beautiful and necessary" with "superb story-telling".

Dr Polonsky decided to notify Professor Service, who sent an email to a number of influential academics and scholars around the country, denouncing the anonymous reviews as "unpleasant personal attacks in the old Soviet fashion".

He added, "Gorbachev banned anonimki from being used in the USSR as a way of tearing up someone’s reputation. Now the grubby practice has sprouted up here."

As Professor Figes was included in the list of people who received the email, he immediately went to his own defence, denying that he had any connection to the anonymous attacks. Professor Figes also contacted Amazon, who confirmed that he was not behind the reviews.

Nevertheless, Dr Polonsky decided to seek legal representation to obtain a court order to reveal the identity of the reviewer.

The story came to a stunning conclusion last Friday when Professor Figes’ lawyer released a statement saying, "My client’s wife wrote the reviews. My client has only just found out about this, this evening. Both he and his wife are taking steps to make the position clear."

None of the parties involved could be reached for comment. However, a first-year history student who found the incident "fascinating" said, "It’s very easy to get carried away online. We should be more forgiving; everyone makes mistakes."