114 Literary Property and International Copyright. 



of George McDonald's books ; that Dodd, Mead & Co. paid Mrs. 

 Charles, author of the Schouberg-Cotta Family, thousands of dollars 

 for her earlier works, and had continued to pay for her later and less 

 popular writings ; and that other publishers had paid, more or less, 



But, these defensive allegations omit two important, facts which ma- 

 terially affect the case : First, they do not state that these payments 

 were voluntary, not made in response to any legal obligation which 

 the author could enforce ; indeed, the helpless author had no voice in 

 the amount paid, and only enjoyed the poor privilege of withholding 

 his sanction to an " authorized American edition," at the hazard of 

 losing all by sheer robbery. Secondly, the payments thus gazetted as 

 a vindication of our publishers were made upon condition of receiving 

 the author's assent to the issue of an "authorized American edition," 

 which practically gave them the exclusive right of reprinting in this 

 country under the protection from competition afforded by what is 

 known as the "courtesy of the trade;" which is near of kin to the 

 moral and high-toned rule of "honor among thieves." That the 

 privilege of publishing an "authorized American edition" with the 

 author's sanction Avas, at one period, of considerable value to the pub- 

 lisher under the courtesy-of-the- trade rule, may be inferred from the 

 fact that Wiley's Sons offered Mr. Ruskin $5,000 for the privilege of 

 publishing such an edition of his works. 



It is not, therefore, entirely clear to ordinary perception, that the 

 payments in question were wholly disinterested. 



But this class of publishers have found that the "courtesy of the 

 trade" does not always protect them in their reprints against the 

 rapacity of unscrupulous parties. For example, Messrs. Roberts 

 Brothers, of Boston, in 1880, issued a circular in reference to unau- 

 thorized and cheap reprints of Jean Ingelow's poems. It seems that, 

 seventeen years before, they had published the first American reprint 

 of her poems, paying her, as they alleged, as though she had been an 

 American author legally entitled "to it. For a long time no other pub- 

 lishers interfered with their monopoly. They had made large expendi- 

 tures by advertising and otherwise, and had paid Miss Ingelow the 

 aggregate of $18,000. At length a pirate seized upon the unprotected 

 property, issued a cheap reprint, which compelled Messrs. Roberts 

 Brothers to sell their superior edition at a greatly reduced price, thus 

 inflicting a severe blow upon both publishers and author. In this 

 particular case, the pirate was an Englishman, who, it seems, had 

 been stimulated bv the success of American enterprise in this field of 

 activity. 



