456 



LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IN 1871. 



over and over again. But this only proves that we 

 object to certain forms of it. I deny that the Ameri- 

 cans have ever rejected an authors' international 

 copyright law from you, or ever had a chance to. If 

 England has offered to the United States a treaty 

 shaped for the simple protection of her authors in 

 that country, it is a diplomatic secret, and I can as- 

 sure you the American people have never suspected 

 it. $o scheme you have ever proposed stops with 

 its nominal purpose. Avowedly an authors' copy- 

 right, it is really an authors' and publishers' copy- 

 right that is demanded of us. You may not see the 

 difference ; Americans do. They see that, while the 

 author has a just claim, the publisher has no claim 

 whatever ; while every arrangement that England has 

 hitherto offered is but a kind of legal saddle for the 

 English publisher to ride his author into the Ameri- 

 can book -market. It is well understood with us that 

 your proffered forms of copyright are less in the in- 

 terest of authors than in the interest of the English 

 book-manufacturer, and it is these forms that the 

 Americans have rejected. Any treaty which makes 

 the English author and the English publisher joint 

 parties to supply us with books, if negotiated by the 

 two Governments, would be repudiated by our people 

 in a year. They believe earnestly in their policy of 

 cheap books, and will not expose it to the peril 

 threatened by an English publishers' copyright. 

 The superior advantages of our system are felt even 

 in Canada. The Canadians will have our cheap re- 

 prints instead of your honest editions, and to this 

 the English Government consents, suspends the laws 

 of the empire in the case of a single province, col- 

 ludes with "Yankee pirates," and robs its own 

 authors that Canadians may have our cheap books. 

 I say robs its authors, for, although a ten per cent. 

 tax is levied by the Canadian Government on re- 

 prints from the United States for the benefit of the 

 author, I am informed by London publishers that 

 money from this source would be a curiosity. 



The United States now contain nearly forty million 

 inhabitants, and they are eminently a book-buying 

 people. The American market for English books is 

 already great, and is destined to become immense. 

 I believe that our people would rejoice to open 

 this vast opportunity to your intellectual laborers. 

 They are not ungrateful ; they know the extent of 

 their obligations to your' thinkers, and they will be 

 glad to do them justice when the way is shown. 

 But they hold themselves perfectly competent to 

 manufacture the books that shall embody your 

 authors' thoughts, in accordance with their own 

 needs, habits, and tastes, and in this they will not 

 be interfered with. 



I am of opinion that an international copyright 

 law, rigorously in the author's interest, requiring 

 him to make contracts for American republication 

 directly with American publishers, and taking effect 

 only upon books entirely manufactured in the United 

 States, would be acceptable to our people. 



I have been unexpectedly called upon to make this 

 communication in vindication of my house and the 

 American people, and the occasion has compelled me 

 to speak more from a personal point of view than 

 would be otherwise agreeable ; but I feel sure that 

 my brother-publishers in America will substantially 

 agree in what I have said, and would have taken a 

 similar course in like circumstances. As to the 

 English publishers, many of whom are my cordial 

 friends, I trust they will not be offended that I have 

 presented the case plainly and directly. Nothing at 

 present is more desirable than to divest the question 

 of the false aspects lent to it by passion, prejudice, 

 ignorance, and class interest, and to deal with it can- 

 didly, broadly, and searchingiy. Hating recently 

 adjusted one of the most embarrassing international 

 differences that could arise between two nations, it 

 is surely not impossible to settle this on the basis of 

 equity and mutual satisfaction. 



A few words, now, to my assailants. Mr. Collins 



says we reprinted his novel, and paid him nothing, 

 which is very likely, although I never heard of it. 

 The book was probably one of those picked up at a 

 slack time to keep men at work, and I trust the 

 author does not natter himself that international 

 copyright can ever help the case of such books. 

 But, knowing nothing of the fate of his novel, I take 

 a random shot : if he will indemnify us against loss, 

 we will give him all the profits. 



" M. IX" complains that we reprinted his "Body 

 and Mind," and he heard nothing from us. Our 

 complaint is, that we heard nothing from him. We 

 first published his large work by arrangement to pny 

 him on the sales as we pay our home authors. The 

 sale has been slow, yet we paid him something, and 

 expect to^pay him more. We considered that we were 

 fairly entitled, when he made a new and more popular 

 book, that he should give us a chance with it. He 

 chose to commit it to a New York branch of a Lon- 

 don house, and the lesson of the case is, that he must 

 not put his faith in " branches." 



" M. LV' is ironical in regard to the doings of 

 " respectable " publishers. Let me remind him that 

 it was widely whispered in the United States that his 

 work was more deeply indebted for valuable but 

 unacknowledged ideas to Spencer's " Psychology " 

 (which happens to be widely read there) than is 

 quite consistent with " respectable " authorship. He 

 applies to us an extract from an American medical 

 journal; I might retort an extract from a British 



of the firm of D. Appleton & Co. 



16 LITTLE BF.ITAIW. 



It becomes at once evident that protection 

 to authors must be reconciled with protection 

 to book-publishers ; as long, at least, as pro- 

 tection has any place in our national policy. 

 A bill in accordance with the general views 

 of this letter has been introduced into Con- 

 gress; and another, having more exclusive 

 reference to the rights of authors, has been 

 offered in competition with it. It can hardly 

 be said to secure any right of foreign authors 

 except the right to be plundered. At present, 

 any publisher may reprint and vend a foreign 

 work without compensation. It is proposed 

 to enact that any publisher may republish any 

 foreign work that is not registered, and may 

 republish any registered work on condition 

 of paying the author five per -cent, upon the 

 sales. As a newspaper correspondent calmly 

 and pleasantly expresses it, the bill prevents 

 any publisher from securing a "monopoly" 

 of an English book. It might be better ent- 

 tled, An Act to prohibit copyright in boobs 

 written by writers not citizens of the United 

 States. The effort to separate entirely the 

 interests of authors and publishers must be 

 futile. A copyright can be of no value to an 

 author unless he can find a publisher, and no 

 publisher can pay profits to the author unless 

 the author has it in his power to secure to 

 him the exclusive right to publish and sell 

 his work. With a presidential election im- 

 pending, it is impossible to feel any sanguine 

 hope that either measure will be enacted at 

 present. But the increased interest manifested 

 in the subject encourages the belief that the 

 present unsatisfactory state of things cannot 

 much longer continue. 



