The publisher of Hillary Clinton's memoir wanted people guessing about her revelations before publication, but those plans were spoiled on Wednesday as some of the book's most colourful details were splashed around the US media.

Published by Simon & Schuster, which paid $8million for the US senator's account of a tumultuous eight years in the White House with her husband Bill Clinton, the book is one of the most anticipated of the year.

Simon & Schuster had planned a media blitz for its release on June 9. It gave no advance media copies.

But late Tuesday, those plans went awry when The Associated Press ran a story that quoted Living History extensively, winning play across the country.

In Washington, Clinton shed no additional light on the revelations, telling reporters she hoped people would 'read the book and draw the conclusions that you decide to draw from reading the book'.

"Hillary's Agony -- She Reveals Bill's Betrayal," the New York Post's front page read on Wednesday, referring to the former president's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The AP story quotes Hillary Clinton as saying in the book that the former president lied to her about his affair for seven months, finally admitting his dalliance days before he was to testify before a grand jury.

"As a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck," Clinton, now a Democratic senator from New York, revealed in the book.

On Wednesday, Clinton told local news station NY1 that the book is not just about the Lewinsky debacle.

"This is a story about an extraordinary time in my life and the life of our country," she said. "I touch on the good times, the not-so-good times and try to explain what that experience was like for me."

In the book, AP said, she recalls August 15, 1998, when her husband "told me for the first time that the situation (with Lewinsky) was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged."

"He now realized he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy," she wrote. "He told me that what happened between them had been brief and sporadic."

"I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?' I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea,'" their teenage daughter.

Clinton, who once called the scandal part of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' to disgrace her husband, said that until he confessed, she believed he was being victimised. The former first lady recalled how the Clintons then slept in separate beds.

The revelations were the most personal ever from Hillary Clinton on the Lewinsky matter, which led to the former president's impeachment.

The leak of the book sparked a potential legal battle.

Sources close to the situation said Simon & Schuster was planning to seek damages from The Associated Press for copyright infringement.

David Tomlin, assistant to the AP's president, said: "Representatives of Simon & Schuster have been in touch with us. We disagree completely with their legal conclusions concerning our story."

Simon & Schuster declined comment on the potential lawsuit and would not confirm the contents of the story.

Still, the publicity did little harm. By late Wednesday, advanced orders ranked it No 2 at amazon.com.

Time magazine has bought the right to publish excerpts from the book in its next issue, which hits newsstands on Monday June 9.

Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly, confirming the purchase, told Reuters on Tuesday: "The book covers everything that has happened to the junior senator from New York. It starts with her grandparents."

A publishing source, who declined to be identified, said Time had paid less than $100,000 for the right to publish excerpts.

Kelly declined to discuss the actual figure but conceded it was a relatively modest sum that reflected the fact that the magazine hits newsstands on the same day the public can buy the book. Had Time been able to publish excerpts a week earlier, Kelly said the magazine would likely have paid more money.