| 504 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/504 | The Author, Vol. 15 Issue 07 (April 1905) | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+15+Issue+07+%28April+1905%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 15 Issue 07 (April 1905)</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Publication">Publication</a> | 1905-04-01-The-Author-15-7 | | | | | 185–216 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=15">15</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1905-04-01">1905-04-01</a> | | | | | | | 7 | | | 19050401 | Che HMuthbor.<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br />
<br />
FOUNDED BY SIR WALTER BESANT.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Vou. XV.—No. 7.<br />
<br />
TELEPHONE NUMBER :<br />
374 VICTORIA.<br />
<br />
TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS :<br />
AUTORIDAD, LONDON.<br />
<br />
———————<br />
NOTICES.<br />
<br />
——— +<br />
<br />
OR the opinions expressed in papers that are<br />
<br />
KE signed or initialled the authors alone are<br />
<br />
responsible. None of the papers or para-<br />
<br />
graphs must be taken as expressing the opinion<br />
<br />
of the Committee unless such is especially stated<br />
to be the case.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
i THE Editor begs to inform members of the<br />
Authors’ Society and other readers of The Author<br />
) #1) that the cases which are from time to time quoted<br />
“| in The Author are cases that have come before the<br />
‘| notice or to the knowledge of the Secretary of the<br />
6 Society, and that those members of the Society<br />
* who desire to have the names of the publishers<br />
<br />
) concerned can obtain them on application.<br />
<br />
eG<br />
List of Members.<br />
<br />
THE List of Members of the Society of Authors<br />
published October, 1902, at the price of 6d., and<br />
the elections from October, 1902, to July, 1903, as<br />
a supplemental list, at the price of 2d., can now be<br />
obtained at the offices of the Society.<br />
<br />
They will be sold to members or associates of<br />
the Society only.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
—_— +<br />
<br />
The Pension Fund of the Society.<br />
<br />
Tue Trustees of the Pension Fund met at the<br />
Society’s Offices in February, 1904, and having<br />
gone carefully into the accounts of the fund,<br />
| decided to purchase £250 London and North<br />
Western 3% Debenture Stock. Accordingly, the<br />
Investments of the Pension Fund at present<br />
<br />
VoL. XV.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
APRIL ist, 1905.<br />
<br />
[Prick SIXPENCE.<br />
<br />
standing in the names of the Trustees are as<br />
<br />
follows.<br />
<br />
This is a statement of the actual stock; the<br />
money value can be easily worked out at the current<br />
price of the market :—<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
CongOls 25%. ee eae. £1000 0 0<br />
<br />
Whocaleioans: i ee 500 0 0<br />
Victorian Government 8 % Consoli-<br />
<br />
dated Inscribed Stock ............... 291 19 11<br />
<br />
War Ioan 4.6.0. ee... 201 9 3<br />
London and North Western 3 % Deben-<br />
<br />
EUG LOCK ec ge 250 0 0<br />
<br />
otal. 2.80356. £2,745 92<br />
<br />
Subscriptions from May, 1904. ey<br />
<br />
May 6,Shepherd,G. H. . : - 0 5 0<br />
<br />
June 24, Rumbold,<br />
<br />
GCB .<br />
July 27, Barnett, P. A. : :<br />
Nov. 9, Hollingsworth, Charles .<br />
1905 Aas<br />
Jan. 12, Anonymous :<br />
<br />
Donations from May, 1904.<br />
<br />
Sir Horace, Bart.,<br />
<br />
May 16, Wynne, C. Whitworth D0. 0<br />
June 23, Kirmse, R. . ‘ 0 5 0<br />
June 23, Kirmse, Mrs. R. : - 055.0<br />
July 21, The Blackmore Memorial<br />
Committee : - 20 0 0<br />
Aug. 5, Walker, William S. 2 0 0<br />
Oct. 6, Hare, F. W. E., M.D. 110<br />
Oct. 6, Hardy, Harold : 010 0<br />
Oct. 20, Cameron, Mrs. Lovett 010 0<br />
Nov. 7, Benecke, Miss Ida . tL 1 0<br />
Noy. 11, Thomas, Mrs. Haig 2 2 0<br />
Noy. 24, Egbert, Henry 0 5 0<br />
1905<br />
Jan. , Middlemas, Miss Jean 010 0<br />
Jan. , Bolton, Miss Anna 0 520<br />
Jan. 24, Barry, Miss Fanny . 0 5 O<br />
Jan. 27, Bencke, Albert 0-5. 0<br />
Jan. 28, Harcourt-Roe, Mrs. 010 O<br />
Feb. 18, French-Sheldon, Mrs. 010 0<br />
L020<br />
<br />
Feb. 21, Lyall, Sir Alfred, P.C.<br />
<br />
<br />
184<br />
<br />
annual expenses of the trade of authorship. They<br />
are difficult to calculate, but I must brace myself to<br />
the task. I only fear, as I have said, that my<br />
income may disappear altogether in consequence.<br />
<br />
On the whole, the comparison with the coach-<br />
builder seems to land us in great difficulties. The<br />
mention of “John Inglesant” suggests to me<br />
another comparison, which I will venture to put<br />
forward, though it does involve the impertinence<br />
of going behind Mr. Hodges’ opinion.<br />
<br />
A doctor amuses himself for a long time by<br />
building a house. He makes it his hobby ; he is<br />
continually altering and embellishing it, he takes<br />
his friends to see it, profiting by their suggestions<br />
as well as by those of his own taste. It is talked<br />
about, and within a certain narrow circle wins a<br />
reputation for beauty and comfort. It is at last<br />
finished ; he either goes to live in it, or lets it,<br />
or sells it, getting in the last case a good price<br />
because of its reputation. If he lives in it or lets<br />
it, he begins o pay income-tax on the annual<br />
value. If he sells it, must he return the price,<br />
less expenses, under schedule D, as a speculative<br />
builder? The case of “John Inglesant ” seems<br />
to me closely analogous. If Mr. Shorthouse<br />
received royalties for it, he would pay income-tax<br />
on them; but if he sold the copyright, would the<br />
sum received really be professional income ?<br />
<br />
T, A. Lacey.<br />
<br />
CopyRiGHT IN PLAYS.<br />
<br />
Str,—Some few years ago I heard Sir Henry<br />
Irving (then “Mr. Irving”) in “ Charles the<br />
First,” by the late dramatist Wills. Considering<br />
the deplorable dearth of good plays nowadays, it<br />
seems to me a matter for regret that “Charles the<br />
First ” has not been revived. It is probable that<br />
Sir Henry Irving has_ the manuscript in his<br />
keeping, and he appears to have sole performing<br />
right. I have applied to him to know if I could<br />
get a chance to read the play, but received a reply<br />
merely stating that it has not been published. It<br />
will be a great pity if the public never hears<br />
anything more of it. Therefore, I venture to ask<br />
if nothing can be done to bring it before us again.<br />
I remember an amusing incident which happened<br />
on the occasion of my hearing the play. I did<br />
not know, at that time, the author’s name, and I<br />
turned to a man sitting near me, and asked him<br />
if he could inform me who was the author. He<br />
<br />
hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘“ Isn’t it.<br />
<br />
by Shakespeare ?” Probably the gentleman had<br />
mixed his dates somewhat !<br />
E. URwick.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
Tue REVIEWING SHAM.<br />
<br />
Sir,—lIs it not time that reviewing should cease,<br />
inasmuch that it is a sham? Half the books<br />
noticed or reviewed are never read at all, being<br />
merely skimmed through, quoted from, condemned<br />
or praised, at the whim of the reviewer. Books<br />
have been frequently sent to me and I have been<br />
asked to review them. To have read conscien-<br />
tiously through each (taking only one bundle<br />
thereof as an example), and pronounced an honest<br />
opinion of the contents, would have taken me<br />
365 days instead of 365 minutes, which is about<br />
the usual amount of time allotted by the ordinary<br />
reviewer to the same number of books, which<br />
I returned, with regrets that I had neither time<br />
nor inclination to read them.<br />
the ordinary reviewer. This personage reviews for<br />
cash. He does it for a living, and the more<br />
books he gets through the larger is the income<br />
that he makes. Would it not be a much better<br />
plan, think you, for authors when they advertise<br />
their books to accompany same with an author's<br />
note stating the object and aim of the work, and<br />
leave it to the public to read it or not as it feels<br />
<br />
inclined, and form its own judgment thereon ? If — 7<br />
<br />
newspapers would afford space for such a note with<br />
advertisements, and make a moderate charge<br />
<br />
much trouble would be saved, and the review- .<br />
<br />
ing sham would be abolished. This would be a<br />
good job indeed. The excessive expense of sending<br />
out “ Copies to the Press” would end, and literature<br />
be given fair play all round.<br />
Believe me, yours very truly,<br />
FLORENCE DIXIE.<br />
Glen Stuart, N.B.<br />
<br />
—-~<_+—<br />
Tur Humours oF Books AND THE WAYS OF<br />
PUBLISHERS.<br />
<br />
Sir,—I am writing a book under the above<br />
title. Both parts of the title will come in for<br />
<br />
treatment, and I shall be glad of any little help in —<br />
the way of facts, fancies, and fragments under<br />
<br />
either. My experience of publishers has been some-<br />
<br />
what extensive and rather mixed. My object will —<br />
<br />
be to give an account of this experience, and par-<br />
<br />
ticularly of a case now in the hands of solicitors.<br />
<br />
I have appealed already and received some assist-<br />
ance. I am quite sure that many of your readers<br />
have some good stories to tell.<br />
<br />
nature be, I should like to receive them. May I<br />
ask the favour of a bounteous reply and supply ?<br />
<br />
Your obedient servant,<br />
J. P. SANDLANDS.<br />
Brigstock Vicarage, Thrapston.<br />
<br />
Whatever their<br />
<br />
Iam not blaming<br />
<br />
eR RAED inl DAS a EL<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
if<br />
<br />
aid<br />
<br />
tdg<br />
<br />
aay<br />
<br />
Che Huthbor.<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br />
<br />
FOUNDED BY SIR WALTER BESANT.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Vou. XV.—No. 7.<br />
<br />
TELEPHONE NUMBER :<br />
374 VICTORIA.<br />
<br />
TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS :<br />
AUTORIDAD, LONDON.<br />
<br />
—___§_+-— 2 —______<br />
NOTICES.<br />
<br />
+1<br />
<br />
OR the opinions expressed in papers that are<br />
K signed or initialled the authors alone are<br />
responsible. None of the papers or para-<br />
graphs must be taken as expressing the opinion<br />
of the Committee unless such is especially stated<br />
to be the case.<br />
<br />
Tue Editor begs to inform members of the<br />
Authors’ Society and other readers of 7he Author<br />
that the cases which are from time to time quoted<br />
in The Author are cases that have come before the<br />
notice or to the knowledge of the Secretary of the<br />
Society, and that those members of the Society<br />
who desire to have the names of the publishers<br />
concerned can obtain them on application.<br />
<br />
+<br />
List of Members.<br />
<br />
Tue List of Members of the Society of Authors<br />
published October, 1902, at the price of 6d., and<br />
the elections from October, 1902, to July, 1903, as<br />
a supplemental list, at the price of 2d., can now be<br />
obtained at the offices of the Society.<br />
<br />
They will be sold to members or associates of<br />
<br />
the Society only.<br />
ae<br />
<br />
The Pension Fund of the Society.<br />
<br />
Tue Trustees of the Pension Fund met at the<br />
Society’s Offices in February, 1904, and having<br />
gone carefully into the accounts of the fund,<br />
decided to purchase £250 London and North<br />
Western 3% Debenture Stock. Accordingly, the<br />
Investments of the Pension Fund at present<br />
<br />
Vou, XV.<br />
<br />
Aprin ist, 1905.<br />
<br />
[PRicE SIXPENCE.<br />
<br />
standing in the names of the Trustees are as<br />
<br />
follows.<br />
<br />
This is a statement of the actual stock; the<br />
money value can be easily worked out at the current<br />
price of the market :—<br />
<br />
COngOlS Pk o.oo. £1000 0 0<br />
Wocal Woans: -.6.4.. 6.650 ioe. 500 0 0<br />
<br />
Victorian Government 3 % Consoli-<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
dated Inscribed Stock ............... 291 19 11<br />
War loan ..2...5 0.02.40... 201 9 3<br />
London and North Western 8 % Deben-<br />
<br />
ture Stock (226. 250 0 0<br />
<br />
Opal) wees. £2,245, 9, 2<br />
Subscriptions from May, 1904. ‘eG<br />
May 6,Shepherd,G. H. . : 7 0.5 0<br />
June 24, Rumbold, Sir Horace, Bart.,<br />
G.C.B. : : : si 0<br />
July 27, Barnett, P. A. : ‘ / 010 0<br />
Noy. 9, Hollingsworth, Charles . 010 0<br />
1905 | aah<br />
Jan. 12, Anonymous . : : . 0 2 6<br />
Donations from May, 1904.<br />
May 16, Wynne, C. Whitworth 5 0 0<br />
June 23, Kirmse, R. . ; 0 5 0<br />
June 23, Kirmse, Mrs. R. : - 70 6 0<br />
July 21,The Blackmore Memorial<br />
Committee é . 20,0 0<br />
Aug. 5, Walker, William 8. 2 0 0<br />
Oct. 6, Hare, F. W. E., M.D. bat 0<br />
Oct. 6, Hardy, Harold : 010 O<br />
Oct. 20, Cameron, Mrs. Lovett 010 0<br />
Nov. 7, Benecke, Miss Ida . 11> 0<br />
Noy. 11, Thomas, Mrs. Haig 2 2 0<br />
Nov. 24, Egbert, Henry 0 5 0<br />
1905<br />
Jan. , Middlemas, Miss Jean 010 O<br />
Jan. , Bolton, Miss Anna 0 5 0<br />
Jan. 24, Barry, Miss Fanny . 0 5 0<br />
Jan. 27, Bencke, Albert 0 5 0<br />
Jan. 28, Harcourt-Roe, Mrs. 010 O<br />
Feb. 18, French-Sheldon, Mrs. 010 0<br />
10 0<br />
<br />
Feb. 21, Lyall, Sir Alfred, P.C.<br />
<br />
<br />
FROM THE COMMITTEE.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
FRBruary 20TH, 1905.<br />
<br />
MEETING of the Committee was held on<br />
Monday, February 20th, at 39, Old Queen<br />
— Street, Storey’s Gate, S.W.<br />
<br />
After the minutes of the previous meeting had<br />
been read and signed, the Chairman, Sir Henry<br />
Bergne, proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Douglas<br />
Freshfield for the work he had done in conducting<br />
the affairs of the Society during the two years of<br />
his chairmanship, and for the attention and ability<br />
with which he had laboured for the best interests<br />
of the Society and its members. The vote of<br />
thanks was seconded by the Vice-chairman and<br />
carried unanimously.<br />
<br />
The election of Members and Associates followed.<br />
The number elected during the present year comes<br />
to forty-six. This is not so large as the number<br />
elected at the same period last year, which was a<br />
phenomenal year, as all members of the Society<br />
will perceive on perusal of the Report ; but the<br />
elections maintain the average of former years.<br />
<br />
The question of United States Copyright was<br />
again considered.<br />
<br />
The provisional date for the dinner was fixed for<br />
the beginning of May. Due notice will be sent to<br />
the members as the time draws nearer.<br />
<br />
FEBRUARY 27TH, 1905.<br />
<br />
A meeting of the Committee was held on<br />
Monday, February 27th, to enable the members to<br />
take into consideration some further points which<br />
had been placed before them dealing with the<br />
question of United States Copyright Law, and to<br />
determine the ultimate course to be adopted with<br />
regard to this issue.<br />
<br />
Note.—The amendment to the United States<br />
law, whereby a certain period of delay is granted<br />
in the case of a work published abroad ina foreign<br />
language, received the President’s signature on<br />
the 2nd of March. As the Act has thus passed.<br />
into law, the question whether any representation<br />
shall be made to the United States Government,<br />
with the view to a similar privilege being granted<br />
to works first published in England, is reserved<br />
for ulterior consideration.<br />
<br />
The text of the United States Act is given in<br />
another column.<br />
<br />
Five Members and Associates who had sent<br />
in their names between February 20th and<br />
February 27th, were duly elected.<br />
<br />
——<br />
<br />
Cases.<br />
<br />
Srxce the last issue of the The Author ten cases<br />
have been before the Secretary. The members’<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
complaints were in three cases for accounts, in one<br />
case for money and accounts, in five cases for<br />
money, and in one case for the return of MS.<br />
Two of the cases in which the Secretary demanded<br />
money have been satisfactorily settled, but so far<br />
none of the others have been brought to a success-<br />
fal issue, owing to the fact that six of them have<br />
been placed in the Secretary’s hands only within<br />
the last week.<br />
<br />
One of the cases in which money and accounts<br />
were demanded, has been placed in the hands of<br />
the Society’s solicitors by the sanction of the<br />
Chairman, and it is probable that the Secretary will<br />
have to take the same course in one other case<br />
where money is due.<br />
<br />
‘AIL the cases left open from the previous month<br />
have been settled, cheques having been received or<br />
the MSS. returned and forwarded to the members,<br />
To this statement, however, there is one exception,<br />
and here the matter hasbeen placed in the solicitors’<br />
hands with instructions to carry it through the<br />
Courts if necessary.<br />
<br />
It is satisfactory to report the successful issue of<br />
so many of the complaints which have been for-<br />
warded to the Society’s office.<br />
<br />
Mr. Grant Richards’ bankruptcy is still proceed-<br />
ing, but the business of winding up is necessarily<br />
slow. The debtor was to have come up for public<br />
examination at the beginning of March, but owing<br />
to his absence abroad his examination has been<br />
deferred till the 14th of this month.<br />
<br />
oo<br />
<br />
Elections.<br />
FEBRUARY 20TH.<br />
<br />
Dexter, Walter 40,Ommaney Road, New<br />
Cross, 8. E.<br />
6, Christ. Church Place,<br />
<br />
Hampstead, N.W.<br />
<br />
Gray, Benjamin<br />
<br />
Lyall, the Right Hon.<br />
Sir Alfred, P.C.<br />
Lydston, G. F., M.D. 815-100, State Street,<br />
Chicago, Tll., U.S.A.<br />
Macdonald, R.<br />
<br />
Neele, Miss Ethel :<br />
Powell, Mrs.<br />
<br />
23, Upper Addison<br />
Gardens, W.<br />
<br />
Herts.<br />
<br />
Ronald, Landon 118, Westbourne<br />
<br />
Terrace, Hyde Park, —<br />
<br />
Saunders, James<br />
Wolverhampton.<br />
<br />
Lomond, Hookwood,<br />
near Horley, Surrey-<br />
<br />
Shepherd, J. A.<br />
“The Spider ”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Harmer Green, Welwyn,<br />
<br />
W.<br />
43, Powlett Street,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Abe<br />
<br />
2<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
FEBRUARY 27TH.<br />
Langbridge, V. . . 95, Ebury Street, 8.W.<br />
Marshall, Mrs. Orde Caxton Hi'all, West-<br />
minster, 8S.W.<br />
Great Baddow, Chelms-<br />
ford.<br />
Vernon, France.<br />
Sutton Vicarage, Dart-<br />
ford.<br />
<br />
Only one member does not desire the publication<br />
of his name or address.<br />
<br />
Maude, Aylmer<br />
<br />
Sherard, Robert . :<br />
Weekes, A.R.. :<br />
<br />
—_—__—__—_e——e___<br />
<br />
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY MEMBERS OF<br />
THE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
—_— oe<br />
<br />
(In the following list we do not propose to give more<br />
than the titles, prices, publishers, etc., of the books<br />
enumerated, with, in special cases, such particulars as may<br />
serve to explain the scope and purpose of the work.<br />
Members are requested to forward information which will<br />
enable the Editor to supply such particulars.)<br />
<br />
BIOGRAPHY.<br />
<br />
CHATHAM. By FREDERIC HARRISON. 72 X 5}. 239 pp.<br />
Macmillan. 2s. 6d.<br />
<br />
COVENTRY PATMORE. By EDMUND GOSSE.<br />
252 pp. Hodder & Stoughton. 3s. 6d,<br />
<br />
THE LIFE STORY OF CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE,<br />
CouUNTESS OF DERBY. By Mary C. ROWSELL. 9 X 53.<br />
188 pp. Kegan Paul. 63. n.<br />
<br />
THE KING IN EXILE. THE WANDERINGS OF CHARLES II.<br />
FROM JUNE, 1646 To JuLy, 1654. By Eva Scorr.<br />
9 x 53. 524 pp. Constable. 16s. n.<br />
<br />
WHISTLER. By HALDANE MACFALL. 73<br />
Foulis. 6d. n.<br />
<br />
72 X 52.<br />
<br />
x 4. 71 pp.<br />
<br />
CLASSICAL,<br />
<br />
THE TROJAN WOMEN OF EURIPIDES. Translated into<br />
English rhyming verse with Explanatory Notes. By<br />
GILBERT MuRRAY. 73 X 53. 94 pp. Allen. 2s.n.<br />
<br />
EDUCATIONAL.<br />
HAKLUYT?’s ENGLISH VOYAGES. Selected and Edited by<br />
<br />
E. E. Spricut, F,R.G.S. 74 x 5. 301 pp. Horace<br />
Marshall. 2s, 6d.<br />
FICTION.<br />
<br />
THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM ASHE. By Mrs. HUMPHRY<br />
Warp. 72 x 541. 506pp. Smith Elder. 6s.<br />
<br />
THe Kine’s SCAPEGOAT. By HAMILTON DRUMMOND,<br />
7% <x 5. 320 pp. Ward Lock. 6s,<br />
<br />
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“ WIDDICOMBE.” By M. P. WiILLcocks,<br />
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Sir CLAUDE MANNERLY. By E. C. Kenyon. 72 x 5.<br />
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FOLKLORE,<br />
<br />
SONGS OF THE VALIANT VOIVODE, AND OTHER STRANGE<br />
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By Héléne Vacaresco. 8} x 53. 238 pp. Harper.<br />
10s. 6d,<br />
<br />
THE SHADE OF THE BALKANS.<br />
GENCHO SLANLIKOFF AND E, J, DILLON,<br />
<br />
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THE FIGHT WITH FRANCE FOR NORTH AMERICA. By<br />
<br />
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<br />
A. G. BRADLEY. New Edition. 83 x 53. 400 pp.<br />
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<br />
————————__+ +<br />
<br />
LITERARY, DRAMATIC, AND MUSICAL<br />
NOTES.<br />
<br />
———<br />
<br />
R. G. H. PERRIS is engaged upon a work<br />
<br />
which will: be entitled “Russia on the<br />
<br />
Eve of Revolution.” It is founded upon<br />
<br />
personal observation of subterranean life in the<br />
<br />
country of the Ozar, and deals with the causes<br />
responsible for the present state of affairs.<br />
<br />
Messrs. Brown, Langham & Co. are producing a<br />
new novel by Miss Myra Swan, author of “Ballast”<br />
and several other novels. The title of the present<br />
book is “ Ground Ivy.”<br />
<br />
Mr. William Greener, author of “A Secret<br />
Agent in Port Arthur” read the chapter missing<br />
from that book to members and friends of the<br />
Camera Club on March 23rd.<br />
<br />
Mr. Frederic Harrison’s life of “ Chatham,”<br />
which forms the concluding volume of Messrs. Mac-<br />
millan’s well-known series of “Twelve English<br />
Statesmen,” was published early in March. With<br />
William the Conqueror, Edward the First, and<br />
Cromwell, Mr. Harrison places Chatham as one of<br />
the four great creative statesmen produced by our<br />
country in eight centuries ; and shows how, by the<br />
creation of the Colonial system, Chatham became<br />
the founder of the British Empire, and how, for a<br />
century and a half, the development of our country<br />
has grown upon the imperial lines of Chatham’s<br />
ideals.<br />
<br />
His Majesty the King has been pleased to accept<br />
a copy of Mr. Mark Synge’s work “ To Lhassa<br />
at Last.”<br />
<br />
Mr. C. F. Keary has written a story, which Mr.<br />
David Nutt has published, under the title of<br />
“Bloomsbury.” ‘The scene is laid almost ex-<br />
clusively in the quarter of London which the<br />
title indicates. For contrast, however, it is<br />
<br />
peopled with a great variety of intellectual types<br />
suggestive of the sects and “isms” among which<br />
society is to-day partitioned.<br />
<br />
Mr. John Foster Fraser’s forthcoming book<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
“Canada as it is,” describes the dominion as he<br />
saw it from one side to the other.<br />
<br />
Mr. W. E. Norris’s new novel, which Messrs.<br />
Methuen & Co. have published under the title of<br />
“ Barham of Beltana,” has for its hero a wealthy<br />
colonist, son of a convict, whose transportation to<br />
Van Diemen’s Land on a charge of embezzlement<br />
was apparently a miscarriage of justice.<br />
<br />
Mr. Edward Noble, whose novel, “ The Edge of<br />
Circumstance” published by Messrs. William<br />
Blackwood’s Sons, is now in its third impression,<br />
is publishing a new book, entitled “ Waves of Fate,”<br />
with the same firm. The work will be on the<br />
market in the course of a month or so.<br />
<br />
It has been proposed that a party of members of<br />
the British International Association of Journalists<br />
should make a tour through Bohemia, starting from<br />
London to Dresden. Mr. James Baker is arrang-<br />
ing the tour. His knowledge of Bohemia will be<br />
of great assistance to the party. It is proposed, if<br />
sufficient names are forthcoming, to start the trip,<br />
which will occupy about fourteen days, at the end<br />
of May or the beginning of June.<br />
<br />
Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. have just published<br />
Mr. Carlton Dawe’s new book, “The Grand Duke.”<br />
The story narrates the adventures of an Englishman,<br />
who bears such a striking resemblance to the Grand<br />
Duke Boris, the Governor-General of Moscow, that,<br />
for the sake of a Russian girl, with whom he is in<br />
love, he actually goes to Moscow and personates<br />
the Governor-General.<br />
<br />
Mr. E. A. Reynolds Ball has just issued through<br />
Messrs. A. & ©. Black, a new work entitled,<br />
“Rome: A Practical Guide to Rome. and its<br />
Environs.” The guide, which is published at the<br />
price of half-a-crown, describes in sufficient detail<br />
the principal objects of interest in Rome, and<br />
whilst mainly appealing to tourists who are only<br />
able to spend a few weeks in this city, does not<br />
neglect the interests of more leisured travellers,<br />
and, to some extent, those of residents and invalids.<br />
<br />
Mr. 8. R. Crockett has completed a new novel,<br />
entitled “Peden the Prophet,” which is running<br />
serially through The British Weekly.<br />
<br />
Mr. F. Howard Collins has compiled a guide for<br />
authors, editors, printers, correctors of the press,<br />
compositors and typists, entitled “ Author and<br />
Printer.” This work, which Mr. Henry Frowde<br />
is about to publish, is an attempt to codify the<br />
best typographical practices of the present day<br />
somewhat on the lines of a dictionary, and Mr. —<br />
Collins has had the assistance of many authors,<br />
editors, printers, and correctors of the press during<br />
the three years he has been engaged upon it.<br />
The book has also been approved by various trade<br />
associations, including the Executive Committee<br />
2 the London Association of Correctors of the —<br />
<br />
Tess. -<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
id<br />
EE<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
A work of fiction called “ A Village Chronicle,”<br />
by Mrs. Katherine 8S. Macquoid, will be published<br />
before Easter by Messrs. Digby, Long & Co. The<br />
book will be illustrated by Forestier.<br />
<br />
Messrs. Constable & Co. have just issued a new<br />
work by Miss Marie Corelli, under the title of<br />
“Free Opinions Freely Expressed.’’ The opinions<br />
refer to certain phases of modern social life and<br />
conduct.<br />
<br />
Mr. Arthur Dillon, whose volume, “River<br />
Songs and other Poems,” appeared some years ago,<br />
will this month bring out in book form, a new<br />
comedy in verse, under the title of “The Greek<br />
Kalends.” Mr. Elkin Mathews is the publisher.<br />
<br />
Mr. T. Werner Laurie will publish shortly a<br />
travel book by Mrs. Katherine 8S. Macqnoid, entitled<br />
“Pictures in Umbria.” The work will be illus-<br />
trated with fifty drawings by Thomas R. Macquoid,<br />
R.I. The price will be six shillings net.<br />
<br />
There has been a considerable demand of late for<br />
“Old Days in Diplomacy,” the second edition of<br />
which isexhausted. The book contains much that<br />
is of special interest at this moment, on the first<br />
outbreak of Nihilism. Miss Montgomery Campbell<br />
is now engaged in preparing Sir Edward Disbrowe’s<br />
valuable collection of autograph letters from<br />
Royalties and statesmen for publication, as algo<br />
letters of Sir Herbert Taylor, secretary to<br />
George IV., William IV., and the Duke of York.<br />
<br />
““Widdicombe” is the title of a novel from the<br />
pen of M. P. Willcocks, which Mr. John Lane pub-<br />
lished during the middle of last month. It is a<br />
story of agricultural life in Devon.<br />
<br />
Mr. Eyre Hussey’s new work entitled “Miss<br />
Badsworth, M.F.H.” which Messrs. Longmans<br />
published recently, sets forth the troubles of a<br />
philanthropic lady who finds herself confronted by<br />
the management of an estate, farm, and pack of<br />
foxhounds.<br />
<br />
Mr. Halliwell Sutcliffe has nearly finished his<br />
new book, “Red o’ the Feud,” which will be pub-<br />
lished by Mr. Werner Laurie. The author of<br />
“Through Sorrow’s Gates,” has returned to that<br />
wild atmosphere of the moor-feuds which seems<br />
to hold a special glamour for him.<br />
<br />
Mr. Harry Furniss has just written his first<br />
novel, a fantastic tale, which he has himself illus-<br />
trated. Messrs. Chapman and Hall will publish<br />
the work under the title of ““ Poverty Bay.”<br />
<br />
We understand from the United States Pub-<br />
lisher’s Weekly, that Messrs. Charles Scribner’s<br />
Sons are publishing a new story by Mr. E. W.<br />
Hornung, entitled “ Stingaree.”<br />
<br />
A second impression of Mr. Wilfrid Ward’s<br />
“Memoir of Aubrey de Vere” has been issued<br />
<br />
by Messrs. Longmans. The price of the work is<br />
<br />
14s, net.<br />
Mr. Heinemann will shortly publish a work by<br />
<br />
189<br />
<br />
Mr. Henry Norman, entitled “ Motors and Men,”<br />
in which the theoretical and practical studies of the<br />
motor-car and its destined influence are considered.<br />
The same publisher is issuing a new and revised<br />
edition of “ The Complete Indian Housekeeper and<br />
Cook,” by Mrs. Steel and G. Gardiner. The work<br />
—which is published in one volume at 6s.—<br />
specifies the duties of mistress and servants, the<br />
general management of the house, and contains<br />
practical recipes for cooking in all its branches,<br />
<br />
“Duke’s Son,” by Mr. Cosmo Hamilton, will<br />
also be published shortly by the same publisher.<br />
The story refers to the younger son of a peer, who,<br />
being obliged to resign his commission in a crack<br />
regiment for financial reasons, resorts to cheating<br />
at bridge as a profession. The success which he<br />
achieves in this direction is, however, only tem-<br />
porary, his marriage to a girl who helps him to<br />
fleece his friends giving rise to suspicions which<br />
eventually lead to his undoing.<br />
<br />
Professor Skeat, who has carried through, in<br />
successive volumes, his modernisation of the “ Can-<br />
terbury Tales,” has now accomplished the same<br />
service for Langland’s “ Vision of Piers Plowman,”<br />
which will shortly be issued as a volume in the<br />
King’s classics. It has been rendered line for line<br />
into modern English, the metre of the original<br />
being practically kept throughout. The “ Vision”<br />
deals with social problems of the fourteenth century,<br />
which were not wholly unlike our own.<br />
<br />
“ Agatha,” by Mrs. Humphry Ward and Mr,<br />
Louis N. Parker, to which we referred in our last<br />
issue, was produced at His Majesty’s Theatre,<br />
on the afternoon of March 7th. The play deals<br />
with Agatha’s refusal, and her subsequent<br />
retraction of this refusal to marry the man<br />
whom she loves, the reason for the refusal being<br />
that she has kept him ignorant of the fact<br />
that she is an illegitimate child, and the reason for<br />
its withdrawal being that her lover’s devotion is<br />
sufficiently strong not to be affected by the<br />
fact. Miss Viola Tree as Agatha, Mr. Dawson<br />
Milward as her lover, and Miss Lillah McCarthy<br />
as the unhappy mother, took the leading parts.<br />
<br />
«The Monkey’s Paw,” by Louis N. Parker and<br />
W. W. Jacobs, was produced at the Haymarket<br />
Theatre, on Saturday, March 4th, in front of<br />
‘“‘ Beauty and the Barge.”<br />
<br />
Mr. Cyril Maude and Miss Bella Pateman share<br />
the main burdens of the piece, which presents a<br />
striking contrast to the one which it precedes.<br />
The story is fantastic and gruesome.<br />
<br />
“ Everybody’s Secret,” by Louis N. Parker and<br />
Captain Robert Marshall, was presented at the<br />
Haymarket Theatre, on the 14th of March.<br />
<br />
Adapted from M, Pierre Wolff’s “‘ Le Secret de<br />
Polichinelle,” the play deals with an alliance<br />
between the son of well-to-do parents and a<br />
<br />
<br />
190<br />
<br />
flower girl, and shows how the lovable nature of<br />
the child of the marriage causes the son’s parents<br />
to forgive the parties to the union, The cast<br />
includes Mr. Cyril Maude and Miss Jessie Bateman.<br />
<br />
«The Three Daughters of M. Dupont,” trans-<br />
lated by Mr. St. John Hankin, was produced by<br />
the Stage Society on March 13th. The cast of<br />
the play—which is rather of a pessimistic nature<br />
—included Miss Ethel Irving and Mr. Charles V.<br />
France.<br />
<br />
2 ee tS<br />
<br />
PARIS NOTES.<br />
<br />
—— +<br />
<br />
« CYUR la Pierre Blanche,” by Anatole France, is<br />
a yolume in three parts. It opens with a<br />
conversation between a group of Frenchmen<br />
<br />
who are passing the early part of the year in Rome.<br />
<br />
They meet, usually at the house of an Italian friend,<br />
<br />
and discuss the past, present, and future. Roman<br />
<br />
archeology, the question of race, colonial politics,<br />
the Russo-J apanese war, and religion are among the<br />
topics of their conversation. Nicole Langelier is<br />
induced by his friends to read them a story that he<br />
has been writing, entitled “Gallion.” It is the<br />
history of an interview between the Apostle Paul and<br />
the Pro-consul Gallion, together with a long and inte-<br />
resting discussion between Gallion and his friends.<br />
<br />
The third part of the book is taken up by another<br />
<br />
story, read aloud to the friends by Hippolyte<br />
<br />
Duiresne, and is supposed to be a prophetic dream.<br />
<br />
The author of the story wakes up one morning and<br />
<br />
finds himself in a Paris that is completely trans-<br />
<br />
formed. ‘The magnificent house near the Bois no<br />
longer exist, but there are smaller houses surrounded<br />
by gardens. Gradually he discovers that he is<br />
living in the year 220 of the European Federation.<br />
Feeling hungry, he wishes to enter a restaurant,<br />
but a man standing at the door asks him for his<br />
ticket, and as he has not one refers him to the house<br />
where people are employed. Another man conducts<br />
him to a great bakery, and he is obliged to watch<br />
the machinery at work for some hours before he is<br />
allowed to satisfy his hunger. It appears that<br />
under the new réyime the Federal Committee has<br />
appointed that there shall be six hours of work for<br />
everyone. Alcohol is abolished and war completely<br />
done away with. It was explained to Hippolyte<br />
that out of the capitalist régime the proletariat had<br />
grown, as during the last years of the old era there<br />
had been great disorder in the production of the<br />
various nations and wild competition. The working<br />
classes had been drawn together, and in this way<br />
had been able to demand and obtain higher wages<br />
and greater liberty. They had no doubt made<br />
great mistakes, but in the end had become a<br />
<br />
great power. ‘The words Liberty, Fraternity, and<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
Equality were no longer used in their old sense,<br />
but the new watchword was “Harmony,” and<br />
the great ambition of the new Federation was<br />
that all people should work together for their<br />
mutual benefit. England refused to belong to<br />
the United States of Europe, but she was an<br />
ally. She had become socialistic, but still re-<br />
tained her king, lords, and even the wigs of her<br />
judges. Under the new dispensation in Europe<br />
there were no armies, but the frontiers were<br />
defended by electricity.<br />
<br />
The book is full of ideas expressed in the perfect<br />
style, and with the delicate veiled irony peculiar to<br />
Anatole France. There are home truths on every<br />
page. Speaking of the various races of mankind,<br />
it is proved that there are inferior and superior<br />
ones, and those which consider themselves superior<br />
have, of course, the right to massacre and oppress<br />
the others.<br />
<br />
‘As regards the yellow peril, this seems to be<br />
traced to the invasion of China by the Christian<br />
missionaries and European merchants, thus proving<br />
to the Chinese that the white peril existed. The<br />
troubles of Pekin in 1901 were among the results<br />
of this, and in order to restore order five Powers<br />
covered with military glory signed a_ treaty in<br />
order to guarantee the integrity of China, while<br />
allowing the Powers to share her provinces. Russia<br />
then occupied Manchuria, so that Russia is now<br />
paying the price of the colonial politics of alk<br />
Burope, and expiating the crimes of all commercial<br />
and military Christianity.<br />
<br />
“Ta Lueur sur la Cime,” by Jacque Vontade, is<br />
a novel by the author of the well-known articles<br />
signed “ Fermina” in the Figaro.<br />
<br />
‘As a psychological study the whole book is<br />
excellent: the characters introduced are so diverse,<br />
and at the same time each one lives and appears to<br />
stand as a type of the individuals which make up<br />
a certain set of modern society in France. There<br />
is the handsome, accomplished man of the world,<br />
agreeable and pleasant to everyone, bent on getting<br />
through life in the most delightful and luxurious<br />
way possible. His wife, a beautiful, clever woman,<br />
extremely self-centred, but capable of better things<br />
if she had been rightly influenced. Her illusions,<br />
disillusions, struggles and curiosities form the<br />
chief theme of the volume. There is also a woman<br />
of character, a fascinating, impetuous creature, who<br />
is a musician and an idealist. ‘A Swedish anarchist<br />
and a French journalist, who, by sheer force of wi<br />
and perseverance have attained a powerful position<br />
in the world, are among the other personages of<br />
the story. The book is written in a charmingly<br />
natural way, and there are man. excellent ideas<br />
expressed in the long harangues of Léonora BarozZl,<br />
the musician, and also of those of the Swedish<br />
anarchist. As a contrast to the two chief women<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
of the book the author introduces us to a woman<br />
with an English name, a cold, sarcastic, unsym-<br />
pathetic person. There are several minor characters,<br />
too, which are admirably well drawn.<br />
<br />
‘“‘ Emancipées,” by Alphonse Georget, is the<br />
story of an artist who marries his model. The<br />
manners and customs of the world in which these<br />
people live is cleverly told—the ambition of the<br />
wife, her anxiety to shake off all that belonged to<br />
her former existence, the way in which she schemes<br />
to obtain money in order to buy furniture and<br />
dress, urging her husband on to work for the sole<br />
reason that she may spend. Her vulgarity and<br />
her jealousies are endured by the long-suffering<br />
husband. Various incidents are introduced which<br />
make the story more dramatic, until at last the<br />
wife leaves her husband, and he devotes himself<br />
from that time forth to his little daughter. The<br />
idea of the book is to show up the unscrupulous-<br />
ness of our times and the esteem that is often the<br />
reward bestowed upon people who can “make their<br />
way ”’ in the world by dishonest means.<br />
<br />
Among the new books are the following: “La<br />
Baignoire 9,” by Henri Lavedan. This is another<br />
collection of dialogues, most of which are amusing,<br />
some of them dramatic, and all witty.<br />
<br />
“Le Prisme,” by Paul and Victor Margueritte, is<br />
a study of the manners and customs of our times, a<br />
satire on the importance given to wealth and<br />
position. The prism is the deforming mirror of<br />
money into which Madame Urtrel is always look-<br />
ing. The authors have painted a faithful picture<br />
of life in its most commonplace aspects.<br />
<br />
“Les Trois Demoiselles,” by Georges de Peyre-<br />
brune, a volume containing three short novels—<br />
“Mariageen palanquin,” La Gardienne” and “ Gris-<br />
perle.”<br />
<br />
“Prisonniers marocains,” by M. Hugues Le Roux ;<br />
“Ta Cité ardente,” by M. H. Carton de Wiart ‘Le<br />
Calvaire d’un docteur,” by M. Johannes Gravier ;<br />
“Esclave,” by Gérard d’Houville.<br />
<br />
In the reviews among the most interesting<br />
articles are the studies of Roumania by M. A.<br />
Bellessort in the Revue des Deux Mondes ; another<br />
on the souvenirs of Alfred Mézitres ; and a scien-<br />
tific article by M. Dastre.<br />
<br />
In the Revue de Paris the letters of Richard<br />
Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonk, an article by<br />
Georges de la Salle on the warin the East ; and one<br />
by Maxime Leroy on the organisation of the<br />
working classes.<br />
<br />
In the Correspondant there is an article by M.<br />
de Lacombe comparing the controversies on the<br />
divinity of Christ in the time of Bossuet with<br />
those in our times.<br />
<br />
In the Nouvelle Revue M. Jules Delvaille writes<br />
on the moral crisis we are going through, and<br />
attributes it to our repugnance to ideas.<br />
<br />
191<br />
<br />
“Les Ventres dorés,” by Emile Fabre, has been<br />
the success of the month in the theatrical world,<br />
The whole play is of great interest and extremely<br />
powerful ; the great theme is money, and how it can<br />
be made in these days. The Odéon Theatre hag<br />
not put on so strong a piece for some time.<br />
<br />
“Les Experts,” by M. Beniére, is a humoristic<br />
play on the question of accidents in factories, A<br />
workman treads on a piece of orange peel and<br />
breaks his leg. Four experts are called in to<br />
discuss the matter. The employer pays one<br />
hundred pounds, but when all the legal expenses<br />
and costs of the experts are paid the unfortunate<br />
victim only receives four pounds. M. Antoine<br />
has given several of these satires on legal points<br />
at his theatre with great success.<br />
<br />
“La Belle Marseillaise,” by Pierre Berton, is<br />
being played at the Ambigu. It is a piece in<br />
four acts, historical and dramatic. The scene is<br />
laid in the time of Napoleon. The Marquis de<br />
Tallemont has taken a restaurant in order to be<br />
able to conspire more easily against the Emperor.<br />
After an attempted murder he is believed to be<br />
dead, and his young widow alone knows that he<br />
is alive. She is in love with an aide-de-camp,<br />
whom she marries when the Marquis de Tallemont<br />
is killed in a duel. ALYS HALLARD.<br />
<br />
Or<br />
<br />
SPANISH NOTES.<br />
t+<br />
HE King of Spain’s forthcoming tour will<br />
afford England the opportunity of giving<br />
expression to the enfente cordiale between<br />
the countries.<br />
<br />
The prompt way in which King Alfonzo recently<br />
overcame the difficulties of the Cabinet resigning<br />
for the second time in about two months shows his<br />
power as a politician, and although Villaverde<br />
persists in the long prorogation of Parliament till<br />
May, which caused the resignation of General<br />
Azcarraga, the last Prime Minister, the King’s hopes<br />
for the success of the new Conservative Leader’s pro-<br />
gramme for the Reform of the Customs, the Coinage,<br />
and the Services will it is hoped be realized.<br />
<br />
The King’s deep interest in the welfare of his<br />
kingdom is seen in the prompt way he sent 2,500<br />
pesetas to be added to the prizes offered by the<br />
Imparcial for the best project for the regulation<br />
of the Budget, with regard to the army, navy, public<br />
education, and the ports.<br />
<br />
The cordiality felt for England in Madrid was<br />
particularly shown in the warm and festive<br />
character of the reception at the Royal Palace of<br />
Sir Arthur Nicholson, the new English Ambas-<br />
sador. The four semi-state carriages and a<br />
company of the Royal Horseguards were in waiting<br />
192<br />
<br />
The staircase at the Palace was<br />
and after replying to the<br />
King’s gracious speech of welcome, Sir Arthur<br />
Nicholson paid his respects to HM. Queen<br />
Christina and her daughter and Dona Isabel. _<br />
<br />
The well-known writer Perez Galdos has just<br />
published Volume XXXVII. of his “ Episodios<br />
Nacionales,” and VI. of the fourth series, under<br />
the title of “ Arta Tettauen.”<br />
<br />
The recent death of the poet Gabriel Galan<br />
has caused universal regret, and the literary<br />
“Conference” given at Caceres in his honour,<br />
subsequent to the funeral ceremony, was SIg-<br />
nalised by the reading of several of his poems, a<br />
fine speech by Senor Ibarrola, his great friend,<br />
and a musical composition written for the occasion<br />
by Seftor Patricio Cabrera. :<br />
<br />
Don José Echegaray, the well-known Spanish<br />
dramatist, has now been appointed by the King<br />
to the Chair of Physics and Science at the Cen-<br />
tral University.<br />
<br />
The National Festival in honour of the famous<br />
poet held on the 18th and 19th of March, assumed<br />
such importance that a royal decree was published<br />
suspending the Law of Domenical Rest for the<br />
occasion, so that the Press could publish early on the<br />
Sunday morning the proceedings of the Saturday<br />
fanctions. His Majesty King Alfonzo at his express<br />
desire presided at the great concourse of the repre-<br />
sentatives of all the professors and societies of the<br />
country. Sefior don Silvela, the quondam Prime<br />
Minister, made the -first speech at the brilliant<br />
assembly in the Congress, and after an address<br />
from the Minister of Sweden, explaining the<br />
origin of the Nobel Prize, King Alfonzo himself<br />
handed the medal and diploma to the illustrious<br />
poet.<br />
<br />
A gala performance was given in the evening of<br />
Echegaray’s plays, “ El libro Talonario” and “ El<br />
gran Galeota,” after which the dramatist received<br />
the gifts sent by the corporations and the scientific<br />
societies of the provinces. On the second day<br />
of the ovation the Plaza de Oriente, facing the<br />
Royal Palace, was the scene of a great popular<br />
manifestation to the poet, and the procession<br />
passed through the city to the Prado, where it<br />
finally dispersed.<br />
<br />
The great assembly held that evening in the<br />
Atheneum was particularly interesting, for Sefor<br />
Ramon y Cajal spoke upon Science, Sefior Perez<br />
Goldés took up the parable for Literature, and<br />
Senor Moret, the president, closed the proceedings<br />
with a brilliant oration. It is to Senor Ramon y<br />
Cajal that Spain owes her present place of distinc-<br />
tion in the scientific world of Germany, for he has<br />
just received the gold medal commemorative of<br />
Hermann von Helmholtz, the great physiologist<br />
and physicist, So Spain has distinguished herself<br />
<br />
at the station.<br />
decorated with flowers,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
nobly this year in the great international contests<br />
in both science and poetry.<br />
<br />
The realm of Art has recently suffered a great<br />
loss in the death of the well-known painter, Manuel<br />
Yus. He was born in 1845, so he was still in<br />
possession of his artistic powers, and he died in<br />
Nuévalos, amid the charming scenes he has im-<br />
mortalized in his pictures, and the whole place<br />
followed him as mourners to his grave. His<br />
portrait of H.M. King Alfonzo and that of H.M,<br />
Queen Christina have been as much admired as hig<br />
typical peasant dances and village scenes.<br />
<br />
The Tri-Centenary Fétes of Don Quixote will<br />
evidently be both characteristic and picturesque.<br />
A royal decree has been sent to the Minister of<br />
Instruction and the Fine Arts, commanding that —<br />
(1) every centre of instruction shall mark the<br />
8th May by some literary or artistic work, com-<br />
memorative of the centenary ; (2) the schools are<br />
all to send up their three best scholars, who, being<br />
poor, may have free opportunity of contending for<br />
the academical distinctions in their respective line<br />
of instruction to be conferred on one of each triad<br />
by the Minister of Education ; (3) that the reports<br />
and photographs of all the scholastic fétes be<br />
forwarded to the Minister of Education.<br />
<br />
The programme of the fétes in the Capitol<br />
include a battle of flowers, a grand meeting of<br />
delegates of foreign and national societies in the<br />
Congress, a military review, a national open-air<br />
fete, and a presentation of wreaths to the statue<br />
of Cervantes from foreign and Spanish literary<br />
societies. The congratulatory address from the<br />
English Society of Authors has met with due<br />
recognition in the Press and has been forwarded<br />
to the Royal Academy of Letters.<br />
<br />
In Valladolid the Society of Monuments is<br />
seeking to celebrate the approaching tri-centenary<br />
of “Don Quixote” by obtaining Cervantes’ house as<br />
a national possession.<br />
<br />
The increasing feeling against duelling is voiced<br />
by the publication in book form of the articles on<br />
the subject (“Contra el duelo”) by Baron de Albi<br />
in El Correo Catalan.<br />
<br />
“Bl Problemas agrario en Andalucia”<br />
erudite work by Don Juan Gallardo Lobato.<br />
<br />
« Bll sitio de Baler ” (“ The Siege of Baler”) is 8<br />
very powerful presentment of this period of the<br />
Cuban War, and as the author is Don Saturnino<br />
Martin Cerezo, the infantry captain in comma:<br />
at the disaster which so marked Spanish heroism,<br />
the book is of an especial, though painful, interest.<br />
<br />
The publication of a book which promises to<br />
become almost a classic in Spain is saddened by<br />
the death of the author. The title of the work,<br />
“Gran Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana<br />
autorizado con ejemplos de escritores antiguos ¥<br />
modernos,” shows the immense scope of the work<br />
<br />
is an<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
undertaken by Don Aniceto de Pagés. It seems<br />
that he had been editor of the ‘ Diccionario<br />
Enciclopedico Hispano-Americano.” He some-<br />
times said that albeit he might be immortalised as<br />
a poet in Catalonia, his great work, the dream of<br />
his life, the now published dictionary, would make<br />
‘| him live as a writer in Castile and Spain. Echegaray<br />
<br />
- said the first sight of the book filled him with sur-<br />
prise, and then its erudition overwhelmed him<br />
almost to dismay. Valera, Pereda, and Pi.y Margall<br />
‘© also express their admiration of the great work.<br />
Silvela, the former Conservative leader, is exciting<br />
| increasing interest in his lectures on Moral and<br />
' Social Biology in the Atheneum. After discoursing<br />
«on the struggle of Good and Evil, Creation and<br />
) Destruction, which is ever present in all philosophy,<br />
sociology, and religion, he said: “ We exist in an<br />
environment of ephemeral things, and yet every<br />
© one really /ives in the eternal relations which he<br />
» creates. We all know the love of man and woman,<br />
- but what is this love when not based on the sense<br />
- of eternal truths ?”<br />
<br />
Armando Palacio Valdés, the celebrated Spanish<br />
writer, known to England by such novels as<br />
1° “Froth,” “The Grandee,” etc., has just sent for<br />
the English press a very philosophical article on<br />
“Art and her Schools,” which promises to excite as<br />
' much interest as that on “The Decadence of Modern<br />
<br />
. Literature,” which I had the honour to translate<br />
© for the Introduction to Vol. XX. of “The Library<br />
|) of Famous Literature,” from the pen of the same<br />
(js author.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
RACHEL CHALLICE.<br />
—————_+—<>—e —_____<br />
<br />
UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT.<br />
<br />
I.<br />
<br />
“i! Tue American Pusiisuers’ Pornt or View.<br />
— ++<br />
<br />
To the Editor of the Standard.<br />
<br />
Smr,—I have read with interest from week to<br />
week the letters that have been addressed to the<br />
' Standard from representative authors, in which are<br />
set forth various grounds of complaint concerning<br />
_the provisions and the working of the present<br />
" American copyright statute. I may say at once,<br />
‘1 writing as one who had some measure of responsi-<br />
Wide bility in securing the enactment of this statute<br />
/) and in maintaining it on the statute book against<br />
ey various later assaults and criticisms, that the<br />
“> grievances of which our literary friends in England<br />
‘7 © are making complaint are in my opinion substan-<br />
<br />
© tially well founded. The American copyright law<br />
© now in force contains incongruities and inconsis-<br />
1 tencies, and in the interpretation of its provisions<br />
'® the Courts find no little difficulty in arriving at<br />
“o* consistent decisions ; while in its application to<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
193<br />
<br />
literary conditions and publishing conditions on<br />
both sides of the Atlantic, it does work inconveni-<br />
ence and injustice to authors, American, English<br />
and Continental, and to the publishers who make<br />
investments in copyright material.<br />
<br />
I can but think, however, that while the injustice<br />
and disadvantage to authors whose works are pro-<br />
duced in languages other than English are manifest<br />
and do constitute a very considerable grievance, the<br />
difficulties obtaining at this time with the authors<br />
of England in connection with the American<br />
editions of their works, may more properly be<br />
described as an inconvenience than as a serious<br />
business disadvantage.<br />
<br />
I note among your recent correspondents the<br />
names of a number of distinguished authors who<br />
have, during the past decade, secured very large<br />
returns from the American sales of their books,<br />
returns which, according to the general under-<br />
standing of the book trade, are in not a few<br />
instances larger from their American readers than<br />
those that have come to them from readers in<br />
Great Britain. It is the case with some at least of<br />
these authors that their more noteworthy successes<br />
have been secured during the last ten years, so<br />
that they may not themselves have personal<br />
realisation of the differences between the condi-<br />
tions of to-day affecting English works reprinted<br />
in the United States, and those which obtained<br />
before the enactment of the law of 1891.<br />
<br />
I can but think that if a trustworthy comparison<br />
could be made of the amounts going over the<br />
Atlantic each year from American book-buyers<br />
to English authors, as recognition for the service<br />
rendered to them by these authors, could be com-<br />
pared with the similar payments made prior to<br />
1891 by publishers who could secure through such<br />
payments no copyright control, there would bea more<br />
adequate recognition on the part of English authors<br />
of the service rendered to English literary workers<br />
by the law of 1891, defective and inadequate as<br />
the law certainly is.<br />
<br />
The grievances presented by your literary corre-<br />
spondents in regard tothe provisions of the American<br />
statute may be classified under four headings :<br />
<br />
1. The requirement that books securing the protection of<br />
American copyright must be manufactured within the<br />
territory of the United States.<br />
<br />
2. The requirement for such books that publication shall<br />
be made in the United States not later than the date of<br />
publication elsewhere.<br />
<br />
3. The imposition of a duty on books imported into the<br />
United States (a condition which belongs, of course, to the<br />
tariff policy of the country and for which the copyright act<br />
can bear no responsibility).<br />
<br />
4, The preference given, or rather proposed to be given,<br />
by the amendment to the copyright law that is now<br />
pending to works originating in language other than in<br />
English, in the matter of the certain time allowance with<br />
which the translation and manufacture of such works can<br />
<br />
<br />
194<br />
<br />
be completed before the opportunity for securing copyright<br />
has lapsed. :<br />
<br />
5, The fact that certain writers are not securing from the<br />
great American public the sales that they were depending<br />
upon, and the further annoyance that they find an increas-<br />
ing competition on the part of American writers for the<br />
favour of the English book-reading public, more part icularly<br />
of course, the readers of fiction.<br />
<br />
The manufacturing clause does not represent, as<br />
has sometimes been assumed in England, an<br />
expression of greed on the part of the American<br />
publishers. I may report, speaking with direct<br />
knowledge of the record, that the copyright Bill as<br />
first framed in 1887, under the direction of the<br />
Authors’ Copyright League and the Publishers’<br />
Copyright League, did not contain any such condi-<br />
tion, The view was accepted quite generally by<br />
the publishers, no less than by the authors, that a<br />
manufacturing requirement was not germane to a<br />
copyright statute, and ought not to be made a con-<br />
dition of copyright. It seemed to us that what-<br />
ever “protection” might be considered due to<br />
the book-manufacturing interests of the country<br />
ought to be provided for in the tariff and not to be<br />
confused with the question of copyright. We did<br />
what was practicable, during a contest lasting<br />
for some years to secure the enactment of the Bill<br />
as framed. After an experience of two years or<br />
more in presenting the matter to the attention of<br />
Congressional committees, and in conferences<br />
with the Typographical Unions and with certain<br />
other Unions that claimed a right to be heard<br />
in the matter, those of us who had charge of the<br />
pill in Washington were obliged to report to<br />
the Copyright Leagues that it was not going to be<br />
practicable to secure its enactment. But the<br />
representatives of the Typographical Unions said<br />
frankly that no copyright Bill should become law<br />
that did not provide for the manufacturing in this<br />
country of the books securing copyright protection,<br />
and it became evident to us that they were in a<br />
position to maintain their contention. It was<br />
finally concluded that, rather than abandon the<br />
attempt to secure some measure of international<br />
copyright, an attempt that represented more than<br />
half a century of effort, it was better to secure the<br />
enactment of a modified Bill.<br />
<br />
It is, unfortunately, the case that, under what I<br />
myself believe to be the necessarily demoralising<br />
influence of the protective system, our legislators<br />
are much more ready to listen to the views of the<br />
Labour Unions and of manufacturing interests<br />
generally than to contentions submitted on the<br />
part of authors and publishers. ‘The former claim<br />
to represent or to control hundreds of thousands of<br />
votes. The latter stand for but few votes, and are<br />
not in a position to influence that class of public<br />
opinion which controls legislation.<br />
<br />
It has been my experience in presenting in a<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
committee room in Congress arguments in behalf<br />
of copyright amendments to be told by the Chair-<br />
man of the Committee that he and his associates<br />
were “entirely in accord with my views.” A<br />
representative of a Typographical Union takes the.<br />
ground, however, that his Union “ does not believe<br />
in Mr. Putnam’s Bill, and that he, the typographer,<br />
is speaking for forty thousand votes.”<br />
<br />
The conclusion of the Chairman is, “ Mr.<br />
Putnam, we are in accord with you in this matter,<br />
but there is no advantage in presenting to the<br />
House from this Committee a Bill to which the<br />
Unions are opposed. You go outside and satisfy<br />
these representatives of the Unions and come back<br />
to us and we will pass your Bill.”<br />
<br />
This, I point out, is the kind of action that can<br />
be expected of legislators who have for years been<br />
maintaining at the expense of the community as a<br />
whole, a system of so-called “ protection” for the<br />
benefit of certain classes of manufacturers and of<br />
labourers.<br />
<br />
While it is the case that, if it had not been<br />
for this sharp antagonism of the typographers,<br />
the Bill would have been passed without the<br />
manufacturing clause, it is proper to record, as<br />
part of the history in the matter, that certain<br />
objections were presented which had nothing to<br />
do with the claims of the typographers.<br />
<br />
It was pointed out by representatives of the book<br />
trade who had knowledge of publishing conditions<br />
that these conditions and methods differ very<br />
materially on the two sides of the Atlantic.<br />
<br />
It was suggested that if the English publishers<br />
were placed in a position through the enactment of<br />
a Copyright Bill without a manufacturing condi-<br />
tion, to supply, as long as they found it convenient,.<br />
their own editions for the American market in<br />
place of arranging with an American publisher<br />
for the production of authorised American editions,<br />
they would quite naturally follow on this side the<br />
routine that prevails in Great Britain. They<br />
would secure for a first term of, say, twelve months.<br />
as large a sale as seemed to be practicable for the<br />
comparatively high-priced form of the original<br />
issue; and they would delay the supplying of the<br />
market, either<br />
<br />
making sale for the first issue. It is the case that —<br />
the requirements of the two markets differ very<br />
materially. The English publisher finds it to his —<br />
advantage to issue a first edition of a book at —<br />
thirty-six shillings,<br />
<br />
sixteen shillings, and to secure sale with the more<br />
pecunious buyers, of such supplies as can be dis-<br />
posed of at that price. A year later the same book<br />
may be published at ten shillings or seven shillings<br />
The American publisher finds that<br />
<br />
and sixpence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
direct or through an American<br />
publisher, with a cheaper edition until they were<br />
sure that they had exhausted the possibilities of<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
or twenty-four shillings, OT<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
he better meets the requirement of his public, and,<br />
therefore, better serves himself and his author, by<br />
printing at once an edition at the lowest price at<br />
which it can be afforded, suited for the widest<br />
possible sale and for the needs of the comparatively<br />
impecunious buyer.<br />
<br />
The publisher on this side makes his sale to a<br />
large public, securing on each copy sold a com-<br />
paratively small margin of profit. The English<br />
publisher, with a very differently situated public<br />
to deal with, finds a better advantage in securing,<br />
at least at the outset, a comparatively large profit<br />
from the circle of pecunious buyers. The im-<br />
pecunious buyer has to wait for a year or more for<br />
the cheaper form.<br />
<br />
If such a method had been attempted in the<br />
American market, the large mass of the book<br />
buyers, obliged to wait for a year or more for the<br />
books of English authors that they had heretofore<br />
been securing promptly, would unquestionably<br />
have brought to bear such a pressure of indignation<br />
upon Congress that the international provision of<br />
the copyright law would have been repealed within<br />
two years. It may be concluded, therefore, that<br />
the manufacturing clause affects the best but a<br />
portion, and, in my judgment, very much the<br />
smaller portion of the English books copyrighted<br />
in the United States. The larger number of such<br />
books would, even if there were no such American<br />
requirement, be reset in the form suited for the<br />
American market.<br />
<br />
The requirement of simultaneous publication<br />
involves, as stated, certain inconveniences. I may<br />
remind your readers, however, that this require-<br />
ment is not peculiar to the American law. It is<br />
also a condition of the British copyright statute.<br />
I may point out further that, as a matter of<br />
practice, there is at this time no essential difficulty<br />
in securing consideration in American publishing<br />
offices, well in advance of the day fixed for the<br />
publication of the book in Great Britain, for all<br />
books which are likely to prove of interest to<br />
American readers and to present any prospect of<br />
satisfactory returns to the authors from this market.<br />
<br />
The production of typewritten copies of a work<br />
of any commercial value is neither difficult nor<br />
expensive, and such typewritten copies can be<br />
submitted, and are submitted, from publishing<br />
office to publishing office on this side weeks or<br />
months in advance of the date fixed for publication<br />
in Great Britain.<br />
<br />
Books can also be submitted, and are submitted,<br />
in the form of advance proofs as fast as the<br />
material is put into type in Great Britain. An<br />
arrangement by cable for a publication date follows<br />
as a matter of routine.<br />
<br />
_ It does from time to time happen that a volume<br />
Supposed at first to be of little commercial import-<br />
<br />
195<br />
<br />
ance, which fails, therefore, to secure favourable<br />
consideration from (more or less obtuse) publishers,<br />
proves later to possess vitality and commercial<br />
value, and that such evidence of its value takes<br />
shape after the opportunity has been passed of<br />
securing American copyright. The occasional loss<br />
of a copyright of value in this way constitutes,<br />
however, but a small offset to the substantial gains<br />
that are secured by the English writers of books<br />
that are suited to the interests of American<br />
readers and that secure from such interests a<br />
satisfactory return.<br />
<br />
One ground for the requirement of simultaneous<br />
publication has not occurred, as it naturally might<br />
not occur, to your literary correspondents. It is,<br />
of course, the manifest interest of the English<br />
author to secure for his American market the<br />
largest price possible. Such price can, however, be<br />
obtained only if at the time he makes the sale, he<br />
is in a position to assure the buyer that he controls<br />
such market and can dispose of the entire usufruct<br />
or possible profit belonging to such market. If,<br />
however, a term of twelve months, as is suggested<br />
by your correspondent, were allowed for the fulfilling<br />
on the part of English authors of the requirements<br />
of the American copyright, within which term of<br />
twelve months no unauthorised edition of the book<br />
could appear, the book would, during such term, be<br />
in an anomalous condition. Hither the English<br />
edition would, during such term, be allowed to<br />
come into the market while arrangements were<br />
pending for the proposed American edition, or<br />
during such term the importation of the English<br />
edition would be prohibited. In the latter case, the<br />
American reader, who sees promptly from week to<br />
week English reviews, would have an annoyance<br />
which would easily accumulate into an indignation,<br />
at not being able to secure at once books which<br />
were already in print in the English market. In<br />
the former case, the American market would be<br />
“ occupied ” to a greater or less extent, in advance<br />
of the production of the authorised American<br />
edition, by supplies coming over from the English<br />
publisher, who naturally would make sale of his<br />
own edition in any territory in which he had a<br />
legal right so to do. The English author would,<br />
therefore, not be able to guarantee to the American<br />
publisher, purchasing the copyright, any control of<br />
the American market. He would be obliged to<br />
admit that such market had doubtless already been<br />
more or less “occupied” by the English copies.<br />
The consideration therefore that he would secure<br />
(in the form either of a fixed price, or of a rate of<br />
royalty, or of an advance against royalty), would<br />
be lessened not only by the extent of any actual<br />
injury or interference that could be determined,<br />
but (as is always the case with a business risk) by<br />
the greater amount that would be required to<br />
<br />
<br />
196<br />
<br />
“insure” against a larger interference than there<br />
might be actual evidence for. In my judgment,<br />
therefore, the English author, while securing a<br />
certain convenience in an additional time within<br />
which to make his bargain, would have a definite<br />
loss of net receipts, which would very much more<br />
than offset such convenience.<br />
<br />
‘he difficulty on the part of authors of books<br />
originating in language other than in English, in<br />
meeting the requirements of the American law<br />
constitute, however, not an inconvenience, but an<br />
obstacle that is almost insurmountable. The<br />
records of the Copyright Office in Washington<br />
show that during the past decade the entries of<br />
authorised American editions of continental works<br />
have been so inconsiderable as to constitute<br />
practically no business under this heading. The<br />
authors on the Continent, and more particularly in<br />
Germany, are complaining, and complaining with<br />
justice, that the American law gives them copy-<br />
right in form, but not in fact. It may in the first<br />
place be borne in mind that the expectations on the<br />
part of these Continental authors, French and<br />
German, in regard to the possibility of returns<br />
from the American market were very much<br />
exaggerated. The experience of publishers show<br />
that it is by no means easy to interest American<br />
readers in books of a popular character (I am<br />
referring more particularly to fiction), which are<br />
written from the Continental point of view of social<br />
conditions, and which present relations and methods<br />
of thought that are foreign to American knowledge<br />
and sympathies. With the most perfect protection<br />
obtainable under any copyright law, the sales of<br />
American editions of Continental books would in<br />
any case be for years to come but inconsiderable.<br />
Under present conditions, however, it is true that<br />
such books cannot secure adequate attention in the<br />
publishing offices, and do not, therefore, have even<br />
a fair chance of comparison with or of fair com-<br />
petition with books of the same class coming from<br />
English and from American authors. The American<br />
publishers require to secure, in regard to Con-<br />
tinental works, the counsel of a rather special<br />
group of literary advisers. It would, as a rue, be<br />
undesirable, if not impracticable, to ask these<br />
advisers to pass upon German material in script,<br />
even if a duplicate script or typewritten copy could<br />
be secured from Germany in advance of the date<br />
fixed for the first publication of the book. The<br />
counsel of the adviser of the American publishing<br />
office must, as a rule, for foreign books, be given<br />
upon the material in print. After such counsel<br />
has been secured (and as above explained, the<br />
chances are at the best very much adverse to the<br />
prospect that the publisher will be tempted to make<br />
the investment), it is necessary, if the work is<br />
accepted, to secure the services of a translator, and<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
to allow the necessary time for the translation. It<br />
is only when this translation has been completed,<br />
that the work of the German author is in a position<br />
to be placed in the American market in competition<br />
with the similar work from his English or American<br />
competitor. The amendment now pending in<br />
Congress simply provides that, for the purpose of<br />
securing this necessary time for the consideration<br />
of the Continental work and for the production of<br />
the translation, a book originating in language<br />
other than in English shall, if copyrighted in this<br />
country within a term of twelve months and in<br />
advance of the production of any unauthorised<br />
edition, secure the full protection. The law as at<br />
present worded gives protection in the case of a<br />
book which has been published abroad before being<br />
issued in this country, only to the particular trans-<br />
lation that has been copyrighted, leaving the<br />
original free to the “ appropriation” of any<br />
unauthorised reprinter who may desire to take it<br />
up. Such a lack of copyright protection con-<br />
stitutes, of necessity, 4 large additional ground for<br />
the general unwillingness of the American pub-<br />
lisher to invest in Continental material. What I<br />
want to make clear is, however, that the amend-<br />
ment, if it should become law, will not give to the<br />
Continental author any “advantage” over his<br />
English rival, but will at best fall short of placing<br />
his book on as favourable a basis for consideration<br />
as that now available for the similar English work.<br />
It is the fact that with a certain group of<br />
English authors, as with similar groups of the<br />
American authors, the returns from the American<br />
market have been smaller, and are from year to<br />
year smaller, than these authors would like to be<br />
able to depend upon. Such a complaint reminds<br />
one of the grievance that came up in the boarding-<br />
house of Mrs. Todgers. “There never was a joint<br />
that could yield as much gravy as the young<br />
gentlemen expects.” Before the enactment of the<br />
law of 1891, the mass of English fiction of what<br />
may be called the “third” or “ fourth grade”<br />
which came into print for American readers with-<br />
out the necessity of any payment to the authors,<br />
constituted a very serious hindrance to the publica-<br />
tion and sale of American fiction of the same<br />
rade, It is undoubtedly true that since the law of<br />
1891, the American writers, who address them-<br />
selves to the wider popular circles, circles whose<br />
literary standard is not very high, have secured a<br />
fuller measure of consideration in the publishing<br />
offices, and much more substantial successes with<br />
the public at large, than was possible when their<br />
books had to compete with literary productions<br />
that had not been paid for.<br />
It is quite possible also that the development of<br />
this class of writing on our side of the Atlantic<br />
<br />
(and the market for fiction is, | may say, in an<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 197<br />
<br />
overcrowded and unsatisfactory condition), has,<br />
since the enactment of the law, stood in the way<br />
of the production of American editions of a large<br />
number of perfectly reputable English novels which<br />
are deserving of coming into print, but which do<br />
not possess what the publishers call a ‘‘ commanding<br />
interest.” There is, in fact, more than enough<br />
of such material produced on both sides of the<br />
Atlantic, and, to put it frankly, there is no present<br />
need as far as the literary wants of American<br />
readers are concerned, for any large additions to<br />
the mass. It is doubtless true, therefore, that the<br />
literary agents who have such books to dispose of,<br />
have been obliged to advise a number of their<br />
English authors that it was not practicable to<br />
secure from the American market the rates of<br />
royalty and the cash advances for which these<br />
authors were hoping. The authors of the first<br />
class, however (I am still using the term in the<br />
publishing or commercial sense), whose books are<br />
fitted to secure a world-wide reputation and which<br />
possess a commanding interest, have a larger<br />
assured market in the United States than had ever<br />
before been possible, and, as suggested, this market<br />
is, in the case of a number of books, sufficiently<br />
remunerative to produce larger returns than could<br />
be secured from the same books on the other side<br />
of the Atlantic.<br />
<br />
There is also, as ought naturally to be the case,<br />
an increasing sale in Great Britain for the works of<br />
American authors, and particularly of American<br />
writers of fiction which possesses (to use the pub-<br />
lishing phrase before quoted) a ‘“ commanding<br />
interest.” These writers belong (speaking still<br />
from the point of view of the publishing office) to<br />
what may be called the first group. It is, how-<br />
ever, the experience of American publishers that it<br />
is by no means easy to secure the favourable atten-<br />
tion of English book-buyers, and particularly of<br />
English readers of fiction, for American books of<br />
the lesser degree of importance, using the term<br />
“importance” either in the literary sense or as<br />
expressing the quality which secures a popular<br />
appreciation. From my own knowledge of condi-<br />
tions on both sides of the Atlantic, I doubt whether<br />
there is any adequate evidence for the statement<br />
that American books are being “dumped” in<br />
large quantities on the English market, or that<br />
the English market is being “swamped” or even<br />
interfered with to any material extent by such<br />
importations.<br />
<br />
The interest on the part of English readers of<br />
American books is increasing, and ought to increase,<br />
but the increase is very much slower than had<br />
been hoped for, and by no means rapid enough to<br />
meet the very general expectation on the part of<br />
American writers that they were going to secure<br />
large transatlantic returns.<br />
<br />
The imposition of a tariff duty on books (and I<br />
may add, although not directly pertaining to the<br />
present discussion, the similar duty on works of<br />
art) which has come into force under our Dingley<br />
system of protection is in my judgment an inex-<br />
cusable barbarism. Such duties are not required<br />
as income for the treasury. They are certainly not<br />
asked for on the part either of the American pub-<br />
lishers or of American authors. They are the result<br />
of the contention of the Labour Unions and of cer-<br />
tain manufacturing concerns that they are entitled<br />
to their share of the spoils of the public treasury,<br />
spoils which, under a protective system, are divided<br />
not with regard to the interests of the community,<br />
but in proportion to the greed of the claimants and<br />
to the effectiveness of their organisation. The duty<br />
on the materialsrequired for the production of books<br />
is, of course, a still more serious burden upon the<br />
higher educational interests of the community than<br />
is the duty on the books themselves. Such duties<br />
cause an unnecessary increase in the cost of<br />
nineteen twentieths of the books sold in this<br />
market, while the duty on the books themselves<br />
affect the selling price only of the remaining<br />
twentieth.<br />
<br />
According to my understanding, however, the<br />
inevitable tendency of the system of “ protection ”<br />
that originated with the taxes of the Civil War,<br />
and has been retained with steadily increasing<br />
rates, and irrespective of the requirements of the<br />
national income, shows an increasing disregard on<br />
the part of the legislators for the interests of the<br />
consumer. Under the protective system, legisla-<br />
tion is dictated and controlled by well organised<br />
business interests that secure, or that believe they<br />
secure, a direct advantage to themselves through<br />
the shaping of legislation.<br />
<br />
I may add that the Authors’ Copyright League<br />
and the Publishers’ Copyright League have now in<br />
train a plan for the revision of the American copy-<br />
right statute by means of a commission to be<br />
appointed for the purpose under an act of Congress.<br />
We believe that through the labours of such a<br />
commission composed of experts, who shall be<br />
allowed the necessary time for the collection of<br />
information and for the sifting of opinions, it<br />
ought to prove practicable to secure a more con-<br />
sistent and satisfactory copyright measure than<br />
that which is now on the statute book. It is<br />
intended that this commission shall comprise from<br />
eleven to thirteen members, and shall include, in<br />
addition to representatives from both Houses of<br />
Congress, representatives of the authors, the artists,<br />
the publishers, the book manufacturing interests<br />
and the other interests that have a direct concern<br />
with copyright, or that, under the present system,<br />
have established a claim to be heard in connection<br />
with copyright.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
198<br />
<br />
We should be glad to learn that, by the time we<br />
have in train a satisfactory revision of the American<br />
statute, steps are being taken to secure for Great<br />
Britain also a more consistent and effective law<br />
than that which now controls copyright for the<br />
British Empire. :<br />
<br />
I am in accord with your correspondents in the<br />
conclusion that the United States could have no<br />
legitimate ground for complaint,or for criticism, if<br />
Great Britain might decide to place upon American<br />
books a duty similar to that which is imposed on<br />
this side on English books ; or if the British copy-<br />
right law might be so modified as to impose a<br />
manufacturing restriction similar to that in force<br />
on this side. The only question that Englishmen<br />
have to consider in regard to such a radical change<br />
from the present British policy, is whether the<br />
change would be likely to prove of any direct<br />
service to English readers or to English authors<br />
and publishers. : 5<br />
<br />
My apology for the length of this report is the<br />
fact that it naturally takes longer to give informa-<br />
tion in regard to the matters complained of than<br />
to state the complaint.<br />
<br />
Trusting that the suggestions here submitted<br />
may prove of some service in connection with the<br />
interesting discussion that has taken shape in your<br />
columns, I am,<br />
<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
Gro. HAvEN PUTNAM.<br />
<br />
The American Publishers’<br />
Copyright League,<br />
27 and 29, West 23rd Street,<br />
New York.<br />
<br />
TE<br />
<br />
An Act to AMEND Section ForTy-NINE HUNDRED<br />
AND FIFTY-TWO OF THE REVISED STATUTES.<br />
<br />
E it enacted by the Senate and House of<br />
Representatives of the United States of<br />
America in Congress assembled,<br />
<br />
That Section forty-nine hundred and fifty-two of<br />
the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby,<br />
amended so as to read as follows :<br />
<br />
Sec. 4952. The author, inventor, designer, or<br />
proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic or<br />
musical composition, engraving, cut, print, or<br />
photograph, or negative thereof, or of a painting,<br />
drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, and of models<br />
or designs intended to be perfected as works of the<br />
fine arts, and the executors, administrators, or<br />
assigns of any such person shall, upon complying<br />
with the provisions of this chapter have the sole<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, com-<br />
pleting, copying, executing, finishing, and vending<br />
the same; and, in the case of a dramatic compo-<br />
sition, of publicly performing or representing it, or<br />
causing it to be performed or represented by<br />
others. And authors or their assigns shall have<br />
exclusive right to dramatize or translate any of<br />
their works for which copyright shall have been<br />
obtained under the laws of the United States.<br />
Whenever the author or proprietor of a book in<br />
a foreign language, which shall be published in a<br />
foreign country before the day of publication in<br />
this country, or his executors, administrators, or<br />
assigns, shall deposit one complete copy of the<br />
same, including all maps and other illustrations, in<br />
the Library of Congress, Washington, District of<br />
Columbia, within thirty days after the first pub-<br />
lication of such book in a foreign country, and<br />
shall insert in such copy, and in all copies of such<br />
book sold or distributed in the United States, on<br />
the title page or the page immediately following, a<br />
notice of the reservation of copyright in the name<br />
of the proprietor, together with the true date of<br />
first publication of such book, in the following<br />
words : ‘‘ Published , nineteen hundred and<br />
Privilege of copyright in the United<br />
States reserved under the Act approved :<br />
nineteen hundred and five, by ,” and shall<br />
within twelve months after the first publication of<br />
such book in a foreign country, file the title of such<br />
book and deposit two copies of it in the original lan-<br />
guage or, at his option, of a translation of it in the<br />
English language, printed from type set within the<br />
limits of the United States, or from plates made<br />
therefrom, containing a notice of copyright, as<br />
provided by the copyright laws now in force, he<br />
and they shall have during the term of twenty-eight<br />
years from the date of recording the title of the<br />
book or the English translation of it, as provided<br />
for above, the sole liberty of printing, reprinting,<br />
publishing, vending, translating and dramatizing<br />
the said book ; Provided, That this Act shall only<br />
apply to a citizen or subject of a foreign State or<br />
nation when such foreign State or nation permits to<br />
citizens of the United States of America the benefit<br />
of copyright on substantially the same basis as to<br />
its own citizens.<br />
Approved, March 8rd, 1905.<br />
<br />
The amendment printed above is a copy of the<br />
text as it was signed by the President.<br />
<br />
It will be seen that this differs considerably<br />
from the draft printed in the last number of The<br />
Author, which appeared to be inadequate on @<br />
good many points. The redraft is by Mr. Thor-<br />
vald Solberg, the registrar of Copyrights of the<br />
Library of Congress, and was undertaken upon<br />
the request of the Senator in charge of the Bill.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 199<br />
<br />
Members who desire to compare the two should<br />
refer to the last number of The Author.<br />
<br />
They will see that to protect the foreign author<br />
securely during the interim period of twelve<br />
months this Bill now requires that one copy of the<br />
original book—not necessarily printed in the<br />
United States—shall be lodged within thirty days<br />
after the first publication, at the Library of Congress<br />
with certain notices printed in it. In the letter of<br />
explanation which Mr. Solberg has written to the<br />
Society, he states that this will give complete<br />
warning to persons interested to keep their hands<br />
off such literary property during the interim<br />
period of twelve months. He further shows that<br />
the deposit within the thirty days will save the<br />
foreign author from the embarrassment of the pro-<br />
vision of the present law requiring the copy to be<br />
deposited on or before the day of publication.<br />
<br />
Further the amendment effects the protection<br />
of the foreign author without it being absolutely<br />
essential for him to publish a translation of his<br />
book. The author is allowed during the interim<br />
term of twelve months to deposit American made<br />
copies either of his original work or of a translation<br />
of it. Protection is given against infringement,<br />
during the interim term of copyright, and during<br />
this term of twelve months the foreign author is<br />
allowed free access to the American market. His<br />
book can be exported to the United States ; intro-<br />
duced into that country and sold without payment<br />
of any duty.<br />
<br />
Mr. Solberg continues: “This privilege of<br />
importation should give the author an opportunity<br />
to demonstrate such a market for his book as to<br />
justify refabrication of it in the United States.<br />
If, therefore, the foreigner reproduces his original<br />
work, complying with the statutory formalities<br />
now in force in regard to filing title, depositing<br />
two copies of the American type-set book and<br />
printing notice, he then secures not only possible<br />
protection for forty-two years, but the absolute<br />
reservation of the right of translation for the same<br />
period of time.”<br />
<br />
We must thank Mr. Solberg very heartily for<br />
his kindness in putting before the Society this full<br />
information.<br />
<br />
<p 4 —-<br />
<br />
MAGAZINE CONTENTS.<br />
<br />
So<br />
MARCH, 1905.<br />
<br />
BLACKWOOD’s MAGAZINE,<br />
<br />
At the University.<br />
<br />
Claverhouse in Literature. By Michael Barrington.<br />
<br />
A Plea for the Abolition of All Learning. By Marcator<br />
Anglicanus,<br />
<br />
BOoOKMAN.<br />
Benjamin Disracli. By Thomas Seccombe,<br />
<br />
300K MonTHLY.<br />
Lubbock on Books. By J. M.<br />
What Greater Britain Reads.<br />
Harrison Ainsworth as the Real Father of the English<br />
‘Penny Dreadful.” By Archibald Sparke.<br />
<br />
CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.<br />
Shall We put the Clock Back in Biblical Criticism. A<br />
Remonstrance. By Canon Cheyne.<br />
Science and Education. By Sir Edward Fry.<br />
Early Friends of Robert Browning. By W. Hall Griffin.<br />
<br />
THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.<br />
<br />
Ibsen in His Letters. By William Archer.<br />
<br />
A Forgotten Soldier Poet. By May Bateman.<br />
<br />
Was Bacon a Poet? By George Stronach,<br />
<br />
Eugene Fromentin. By C. G. Compton.<br />
<br />
Harrison Ainsworth. By Francis Gribble.<br />
<br />
French Life and the French Stage.<br />
Macdonald.<br />
<br />
THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW.<br />
<br />
A Levantine Messiah. By H. N. Brailsford.<br />
<br />
Watts and National Art. By Laurence Binyon.<br />
<br />
A Farm School in the Transvaal. By An English<br />
Teacher.<br />
<br />
Myers’ Posthumous Writings. By Arthur Sidgwick.<br />
<br />
By John F,<br />
<br />
LONGMAN’S MAGAZINE.<br />
<br />
At the Sign of the Ship: United States Copyright. By<br />
<br />
Andrew Lang.<br />
MACMILLAN’S MAGAZINE.<br />
<br />
The Profession of Art. By Lewis F. Day.<br />
<br />
The Fellow Workers of Voltaire: Dierdot. By S. G.<br />
Tallentyre.<br />
<br />
MontH.<br />
<br />
The Scientific Frontier. By The Rev. John Gerard.<br />
<br />
The Battle of the Schools in Belgium. By Pierre<br />
Verhaegen.<br />
<br />
MonTHLY REVIEW.<br />
Edward Burne Jones. By Julia Cartwright,<br />
<br />
NATIONAL REVIEW.<br />
Street Music. By Miss Virginia Stephen.<br />
<br />
NINETEENTH CENTURY,<br />
<br />
George Frederick Watts: From the Utmost to the<br />
Highest. By Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B.<br />
The Experiment of Impressionism.<br />
<br />
Burne Jones, Bart.<br />
Greek Mysteries and the Gospel Narrative. By Slade<br />
Butler.<br />
<br />
By Sir Philip<br />
<br />
PALL MALL MAGAZINE.<br />
<br />
Personalities of the Paris Press. By Charles Dawbarn.<br />
Some Popular Novels and Why they are Popular. By<br />
<br />
James Douglas.<br />
TEMPLE BAR.<br />
<br />
From South to North Spain. By Miss H. H. Colvill.<br />
<br />
Wor.p’s WorK,<br />
An American Artist : John W. Alexander. By Charles<br />
H. Caffin.<br />
<br />
There are no articles dealing with literary, dramatic or<br />
musical subjects in Cornhill or Chambers’ Journal,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
200<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO THE PRODUCER<br />
OF BOOKS.<br />
<br />
—<br />
<br />
ERE are a few standing rules to be observed in an<br />
agreement. There are four methods of dealing<br />
with literary property :—<br />
<br />
I. Selling it Outright.<br />
<br />
This is sometimes satisfactory, if a proper price can be<br />
obtained. But the transaction should be managed by a<br />
competent agent, or with the advice of the Secretary of<br />
the Society.<br />
<br />
Il. A Profit-Sharing Agreement (a bad form of<br />
agreement).<br />
<br />
In this case the following rules should be attended to:<br />
<br />
(1.) Not to sign any agreement in which the cost of pro-<br />
duction forms a part without the strictest investigation.<br />
<br />
(2.) Not to give the publisher the power of putting the<br />
profits into his own pocket by charging for advertisements<br />
in his own organs, or by charging exchange advertise-<br />
ments. Therefore keep control of the advertisements.<br />
<br />
(8.) Not to allow a special charge for “ office expenses,”<br />
unless the same allowance is made to the author.<br />
<br />
(4.) Not to give up American, Colonial, or Continental<br />
rights.<br />
<br />
(5.) Not to give up serial or translation rights.<br />
<br />
(6.) Not to bind yourself for future work to any publisher.<br />
As well bind yourself for the future to any one solicitor or<br />
doctor !<br />
<br />
III. The Royalty System.<br />
<br />
This is perhaps, with certain limitations, the best form<br />
of agreement. It is above all things necessary to know<br />
what the proposed royalty means to both sides. It is now<br />
possible for an author to ascertain approximately the<br />
truth. From time to time very important figures connected<br />
with royalties are published in Zhe Author.<br />
<br />
IV. A Commission Agreement.<br />
<br />
The main points are :—<br />
<br />
(1.) Be careful to obtain a fair cost of production.<br />
(2.) Keep control of the advertisements.<br />
<br />
(3.) Keep control of the sale price of the book,<br />
<br />
General.<br />
<br />
All other forms of agreement are combinations of the four<br />
above mentioned.<br />
<br />
Such combinations are generally disastrous to the author,<br />
<br />
Never sign any agreement without competent advice from<br />
the Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
Stamp all agreements with the Inland Revenue stamp.<br />
<br />
Avoid agreements by letter if possible.<br />
<br />
The main points which the Society has always demanded<br />
from the outset are :-—<br />
<br />
(1.) That both sides shall know what an agreement<br />
means.<br />
<br />
(2.) The inspection of those account books which belong<br />
tothe author. We are advised that this is a right, in the<br />
nature of a common law right, which cannot be denied or<br />
withheld.<br />
<br />
(3.) Always avoid a transfer of copyright.<br />
<br />
—__+—_2—____—_-<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO DRAMATIC AUTHORS.<br />
<br />
Lge<br />
EVER sign an agreement without submitting it to the<br />
Secretary of the Society of Authors or some com-<br />
petent legal authority.<br />
2. It is well to be extremely careful in negotiating for<br />
the production of a play with anyone except an established<br />
manager,<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
3. There are three forms of dramatic contract for plays<br />
in three or more acts :—<br />
<br />
(a.) Sale outright of the performing right. This<br />
is unsatisfactory. An author who enters into<br />
such a contract should stipulate in the contract<br />
for production of the piece by a certain date<br />
and for proper publication of his name on the<br />
play-bills.<br />
<br />
(b.) Sale of performing right or of a licence to<br />
perform on the basis of percentages on<br />
gross receipts. Percentages vary between 5<br />
and 15 per cent. An author should obtain a<br />
percentage on the sliding scale of gross receipts<br />
in preference to the American system. Should<br />
obtain a sum inadvance of percentages. A fixed<br />
date on or before which the play should be<br />
performed.<br />
<br />
(c.) Sale of performing right or of a licence to<br />
perform on the basis of royalties («.c., fixed<br />
nightly fees). This method should be always<br />
avoided except in cases where the fees are<br />
likely to be small or difficult to collect. The<br />
other safeguards set out under heading (0.) apply<br />
also in this case.<br />
<br />
4, Plays in one act are often sold outright, but it is<br />
better to obtain a small nightly fee if possible, and a sum<br />
paid in advance of such fees in any event. It is extremely<br />
important that the amateur rights of one-act plays should<br />
be reserved.<br />
<br />
5, Authors should remember that performing rights can<br />
be limited, and are usually limited, by town, country, and<br />
time. This is most important.<br />
<br />
6. Authors should not assign performing rights, but<br />
should grant a licence to perform. The legal distinction is<br />
of great importance.<br />
<br />
7. Authors should remember that performing rights in a<br />
play are distinct from literary copyright. A manager<br />
holding the performing right or licence to perform cannot<br />
print the book of the words.<br />
<br />
8. Never forget that United States rights may be exceed-<br />
ingly valuable. ‘hey should never be included in English<br />
agreements without the author obtaining a substantial<br />
consideration.<br />
<br />
9. Agreements for collaboration should be carefully<br />
drawn and executed before collaboration is commenced.<br />
<br />
10. An author should remember that production of a play<br />
is highly speculative: that he runs a very great risk of<br />
delay and a breakdown in the fulfilment of his contract.<br />
He should therefore guard himself all the more carefully in<br />
the beginning.<br />
<br />
11. An author must remember that the dramatic market<br />
is exceedingly limited, and that for a novice the first object<br />
is to obtain adequate publication.<br />
<br />
As these warnings must necessarily be incomplete, om<br />
account of the wide range of the subject of dramatic con-<br />
tracts, those authors desirous of further information<br />
are referred to the Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
—_————_1—_—_e—__—_<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO MUSICAL COMPOSERS.<br />
<br />
—»—— + ——<br />
<br />
ITTLE can be added to the warnings given for the<br />
assistance of producers of books and dramatic<br />
authors. It must, however, be pointed out that,. as<br />
<br />
a rule, the musical publisher demands from the musical<br />
composer a transfer of fuller rights and less liberal finan-<br />
cial terms than those obtained for literary and dramatic<br />
property. The musical composer has very often the two<br />
<br />
rights to deal with—performing right and copyright. He<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
should be especially careful therefore when entering into<br />
an agreement, and should take into part. cular consideration<br />
the warnings stated above.<br />
<br />
i<br />
<br />
HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
es<br />
<br />
i VERY member has a right toask for and to receive<br />
BK advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub-<br />
lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br />
business or the administration of his property. The<br />
Secretary of the Society is a solicitor, but if there is any<br />
special reason the Secretary will refer the case to the<br />
Solicitors of the Society. Further, the Committee, if they<br />
deem it desirable, will obtain counsel’s opinion. All this<br />
without any cost to the member.<br />
<br />
2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br />
and publishers’ agreements do not fall within the experi-<br />
ence of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple to use<br />
the Society.<br />
<br />
3. Send to the Office copies of past agreements and past<br />
accounts, with a copy of the book represented. The<br />
Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new<br />
or old, for inspection and note. The information thus<br />
obtained may prove invaluable.<br />
<br />
4. Before signing any agreement whatever, send<br />
the document to the Society for examination.<br />
<br />
5. Remember always that in belonging to the Society<br />
you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you<br />
are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are<br />
advancing the best interests of your calling in promoting<br />
the independence of the writer, the dramatist, the composer.<br />
<br />
6. The Committee have now arranged for the reception<br />
of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fire-<br />
proof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as<br />
confidential documents to be read only by the Secretary,<br />
who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:<br />
—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and to give<br />
advice concerning publishers. (2) To stamp agreements<br />
in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep<br />
agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to<br />
agreements. Fuller particulars of the Society’s work<br />
can be obtained in the Prospectus.<br />
<br />
7. No contract should be entered into with a literary<br />
agent without the advice of the Secretary of the Society.<br />
Members are strongly advised not to accept without careful<br />
consideration the contracts with publishers submitted to<br />
them by literary agents, and are recommended to submit<br />
them for interpretation and explanation to the Secretary<br />
of the Society.<br />
<br />
This<br />
The<br />
<br />
8. Many agents neglect to stamp agreements,<br />
must be done within fourteen days of first execution,<br />
Secretary will undertake it on behalf of members,<br />
<br />
9. Some agents endeavour to prevent authors from<br />
referring matters to the Secretary of the Society; so<br />
do some publishers. Members can make their own<br />
deductions and act accordingly.<br />
<br />
_10, The subscription to the Society is’"£4 41s. per<br />
annum, or £10 10s for life membership.<br />
<br />
201<br />
TO MUSICAL COMPOSERS.<br />
<br />
TS Society undertakes to stamp copies of music on<br />
behalf of its members for the fee of 6d. per 100 or<br />
part of 100. The members’ stamps are kept in the<br />
Society’s safe. The musical publishers communicate direct<br />
with the Secretary, and the voucher is then forwarded to<br />
the members, who are thus saved much unnecessary trouble.<br />
<br />
——$_+~—<br />
THE READING BRANCH.<br />
<br />
—+~o +<br />
<br />
EMBERS will greatly assist the Society in this<br />
branch of its work by informing young writers<br />
of its existence. Their MSS. can be read and<br />
<br />
treated as a composition is treated by a coach. ‘The term<br />
MSS. includes not only works of fiction, but poetry<br />
and dramatic works, and when it is possible, under<br />
special arrangement, technical and scientific works. The<br />
Readers are writers of competence and experience. The<br />
fee is one guinea.<br />
<br />
++ ____<br />
NOTICES.<br />
<br />
—_1+—<br />
<br />
HE Editor of Zhe Author begs to remind members of<br />
<br />
the Society that, although the paper is sent to them<br />
<br />
free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a<br />
<br />
very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br />
<br />
many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br />
5s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br />
<br />
Communications for “The Author” should be addressed<br />
to the Offices of the Society, 39, Old Queen Street, Storey’s<br />
Gate, S.W., and should reach the Editor not later than the<br />
21st of each month.<br />
<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind,<br />
whether members of the Society or not, are invited to<br />
communicate to the Editor any points connected with their<br />
work which it would be advisable in the general interest to<br />
publish.<br />
<br />
Communications and letters are invited by the<br />
Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on<br />
no other subjects whatever. Hvery effort will be made to<br />
return articles which cannot be accepted.<br />
<br />
—1~< +.<br />
<br />
The Secretary of the Society begs to give notice<br />
that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post,<br />
and he requests members who do not receive an<br />
answer to important communications within two days to<br />
write to him without delay. All remittances should be<br />
crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery Lane, or be sent<br />
by registered letter only.<br />
<br />
Oe<br />
<br />
LEGAL AND GENERAL LIFE ASSURANCE<br />
SOCIETY.<br />
a<br />
<br />
Dae to commence at any selected age,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
either with or without Life Assurance, can<br />
be obtained from this society.<br />
Full particulars can be obtained from the City<br />
Branch Manager, Legal and General Life Assurance<br />
Society, 158, Leadenhall Street, London, E.C.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
200<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO THE PRODUCER<br />
OF BOOKS.<br />
<br />
— to<br />
<br />
ERE are a few standing rules to be observed in an<br />
agreement. There are four methods of dealing<br />
with literary property :—<br />
<br />
I. Selling it Outright.<br />
<br />
This is sometimes satisfactory, if a proper price can be<br />
obtained. But the transaction should be managed by a<br />
competent agent, or with the advice of the Secretary of<br />
the Society.<br />
<br />
ll. A Profit-Sharing Agreement (a bad form of<br />
agreement).<br />
<br />
In this case the following rules should be attended to:<br />
<br />
(1.) Not to sign any agreement in which the cost of pro-<br />
duction forms a part without the strictest investigation.<br />
<br />
(2.) Not to give the publisher the power of putting the<br />
profits into his own pocket by charging for advertisements<br />
in his own organs, or by charging exchange advertise-<br />
ments. Therefore keep control of the advertisements.<br />
<br />
(3.) Not to allow a special charge for “ office expenses,”<br />
unless the same allowance is made to the author.<br />
<br />
(4.) Not to give up American, Colonial, or Continental<br />
rights.<br />
<br />
(5.) Not to give up serial or translation rights.<br />
<br />
(6.) Not to bind yourself for future work to any publisher.<br />
As well bind yourself for the future to any one solicitor or<br />
doctor !<br />
<br />
III. The Royalty System.<br />
<br />
This is perhaps, with certain limitations, the best form<br />
of agreement. It is above all things necessary to know<br />
what the proposed royalty means to both sides. It is now<br />
possible for an author to ascertain approximately the<br />
truth. From time to time very important figures connected<br />
with royalties are published in Zhe Author.<br />
<br />
IVY. A Commission Agreement.<br />
<br />
The main points are :—<br />
<br />
(1.) Be careful to obtain a fair cost of production.<br />
(2.) Keep control of the advertisements.<br />
<br />
(3.) Keep control of the sale price of the book.<br />
<br />
General.<br />
<br />
All other. forms of agreement are combinations of the four<br />
above mentioned.<br />
<br />
Such combinations are generally disastrous to the author.<br />
<br />
Never sign any agreement without competent advice from<br />
the Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
Stamp all agreements with the Inland Revenue stamp.<br />
<br />
Avoid agreements by letter if possible.<br />
<br />
The main points which the Society has always demanded<br />
from the outset are :—<br />
<br />
C1.) That both sides shall know what an agreement<br />
means.<br />
<br />
(2.) The inspection of those account books which belong<br />
to the author. We are advised that this is a right, in the<br />
nature of a common law right, which cannot be denied or<br />
withheld.<br />
<br />
(3.) Always avoid a transfer of copyright.<br />
<br />
————_+——_+____-<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO DRAMATIC AUTHORS.<br />
<br />
Se<br />
EVER sign an agreement without submitting it to the<br />
Secretary of the Society of Authors or some com-<br />
__ petent legal authority.<br />
2. It is well to be extremely careful in negotiating for<br />
<br />
the production of a play with anyone except an established<br />
manager,<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
3. There are three forms of dramatic contract for plays<br />
in three or more acts :—<br />
<br />
(a.) Sale outright of the performing right. This<br />
is unsatisfactory. An author who enters into<br />
such a contract should stipulate in the contract<br />
for production of the piece by a certain date<br />
and for proper publication of his name on the<br />
play-bills.<br />
<br />
(b.) Sale of performing right or of a licence to<br />
perform on the basis of percentages on<br />
gross receipts. Percentages vary between 5<br />
and 15 per cent. An author should obtain a<br />
percentage on the sliding scale of gross receipts<br />
in preference to the American system. Should<br />
obtain a sum in advance of percentages. A fixed<br />
date on or before which the play should be<br />
performed.<br />
<br />
(c.) Sale of performing right or of a licence to<br />
perform on the basis of royalties (i.¢., fixed<br />
nightly fees). This method should be always<br />
avoided except in cases where the fees are<br />
likely to be small or difficult to collect. The<br />
other safeguards set out under heading (0.) apply<br />
also in this case.<br />
<br />
4. Plays in one act are often sold outright, but it is<br />
better to obtain a small nightly fee if possible, and a sum<br />
paid in advance of such fees in any event. It is extremely<br />
important that the amateur rights of one-act plays should<br />
be reserved.<br />
<br />
5. Authors should remember that performing rights can<br />
be limited, and are usually limited, by town, country, and<br />
time. This is most important.<br />
<br />
6. Authors should not assign performing rights, but<br />
should grant a licence to perform. The legal distinction is<br />
of great importance.<br />
<br />
7. Authors should remember that performing rights in a<br />
play are distinct from literary copyright. A manager<br />
holding the performing right or licence to perform cannot<br />
print the book of the words.<br />
<br />
8. Never forget that United States rights may be exceed-<br />
ingly valuable. ‘hey should never be included in English<br />
agreements without the author obtaining a substantial<br />
consideration.<br />
<br />
9. Agreements for collaboration should be carefully<br />
drawn and executed before collaboration is commenced.<br />
<br />
10. An author should remember that production of a play<br />
is highly speculative: that he runs a very great risk of<br />
delay and a breakdown in the fulfilment of his contract.<br />
He should therefore guard himself all the more carefully in<br />
the beginning.<br />
<br />
11. An author must remember that the dramatic market<br />
is exceedingly limited, and that for a novice the first object<br />
is to obtain adequate publication.<br />
<br />
As these warnings must necessarily be incomplete, 0B<br />
account of the wide range of the subject of dramatic con-<br />
tracts, those authors desirous of further information<br />
are referred to the Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
——__—_.——_—___<_<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO MUSICAL COMPOSERS.<br />
<br />
—_.— 1 —<br />
<br />
ITTLE can be added to the warnings given for the<br />
assistance of producers of books and dramatic<br />
authors. It must, however, be pointed out that,. a8<br />
<br />
a rule, the musical publisher demands from the music<br />
<br />
composer a transfer of fuller rights and less liberal finan-<br />
cial terms than those obtained for literary and dramatic<br />
property. The musical composer has very often the two<br />
rights to deal with—performing right and copyright. He<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
should be especially careful therefore when entering into<br />
an agreement, and should take into part. cular consideration<br />
the warnings stated above.<br />
<br />
Oo<br />
<br />
HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
i<br />
<br />
1, VERY member has a right toask for and to receive<br />
advice upon his agreements, his choice of a” pub-<br />
lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br />
<br />
business or the administration of his property. The<br />
<br />
Secretary of the Society is a solicitor, but if there is any<br />
<br />
special reason the Secretary will refer the case to the<br />
<br />
Solicitors of the Society. Further, the Committee, if they<br />
<br />
deem it desirable, will obtain counsel’s opinion. All this<br />
<br />
without any cost to the member.<br />
<br />
2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br />
and publishers’ agreements do not fall within the experi-<br />
ence of ordinarysolicitors. Therefore, do not scruple to use<br />
the Society.<br />
<br />
3. Send to the Office copies of past agreements and past<br />
accounts, with a copy of the book represented. The<br />
Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new<br />
or old, for inspection and note. The information thus<br />
obtained may prove invaluable.<br />
<br />
4. Before signing any agreement whatever, send<br />
the document to the Society for examination.<br />
<br />
5. Remember always that in belonging to the Society<br />
you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you<br />
are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are<br />
advancing the best interests of your calling in promoting<br />
the independence of the writer, the dramatist, the composer.<br />
<br />
6. The Committee have now arranged for the reception<br />
of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fire-<br />
proof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as<br />
confidential documents to be read only by the Secretary,<br />
who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:<br />
—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and to give<br />
advice concerning publishers. (2) To stamp agreements<br />
in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep<br />
agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to<br />
agreements. Fuller particulars of the Society’s work<br />
can be obtained in the Prospectus.<br />
<br />
7. No contract should be entered into with a literary<br />
agent without the advice of the Secretary of the Society.<br />
Members are strongly advised not to accept without careful<br />
consideration the contracts with publishers submitted to<br />
them by literary agents, and are recommended to submit<br />
them for interpretation and explanation to the Secretary<br />
of the Society.<br />
<br />
8. Many agents neglect to stamp agreements. This<br />
must be done within fourteen days of first execution. The<br />
Secretary will undertake it on behalf of members.<br />
<br />
9. Some agents endeavour to prevent authors from<br />
referring matters to the Secretary of the Society; so<br />
do some publishers. Members can make their own<br />
deductions and act accordingly.<br />
<br />
10. The subscription to the Society is'"£1 4s. per<br />
annum, or £10 10s for life membership.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
201<br />
TO MUSICAL COMPOSERS.<br />
<br />
she: Society undertakes to stamp copies of music on<br />
behalf of its members for the fee of 6d. per 100 or<br />
part of 100. The members’ stamps are kept in the<br />
Society’s safe. The musical publishers communicate direct<br />
with the Secretary, and the voucher is then forwarded to<br />
the members, who are thus saved much unnecessary trouble.<br />
<br />
—_—_+—~@—.+—____<br />
THE READING BRANCH.<br />
<br />
—_t——» —_<br />
<br />
EMBERS will greatly assist the Society in this<br />
branch of its work by informing young writers<br />
of its existence. Their MSS. can be read and<br />
<br />
treated as a composition is treated by a coach. The term<br />
MSS. includes not only works of fiction, but poetry<br />
and dramatic works, and when it is possible, under<br />
special arrangement, technical and scientific works. The<br />
Readers are writers of competence and experience, The<br />
fee is one guinea,<br />
<br />
—————+—_—_+<br />
<br />
NOTICES.<br />
<br />
+<br />
<br />
HE Editor of Zhe Author begs to remind members of<br />
<br />
the Society that, although the paper is sent to them<br />
<br />
free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a<br />
<br />
very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br />
<br />
many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br />
5s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br />
<br />
Communications for “The Author” should be addressed<br />
to the Offices of the Society, 39, Old Queen Street, Storey’s<br />
Gate, S.W., and should reach the Editor not later than the<br />
21st of each month.<br />
<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind,<br />
whether members of the Society or not, are invited to<br />
communicate to the Editor any points connected with their<br />
work which it would be advisable in the general interest to<br />
publish.<br />
<br />
Communications and letters are invited by the<br />
Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on<br />
no other subjects whatever, Every effort will be made to<br />
return articles which cannot be accepted.<br />
<br />
St<br />
<br />
The Secretary of the Society begs to give notice<br />
that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post,<br />
and he requests members who do not receive an<br />
answer to important communications within two days to<br />
write to him without delay. All remittances should be<br />
crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery Lane, or be sent<br />
by registered letter only.<br />
<br />
—<br />
<br />
LEGAL AND GENERAL LIFE ASSURANCE<br />
SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
— 4<br />
<br />
ENSIONS to commence at any selected age,<br />
P either with or without Life Assurance, can<br />
be obtained from this society.<br />
Full particulars can be obtained from the City<br />
Branch Manager, Legal and General Life Assurance<br />
Society, 158, Leadenhall Street, London, H.C.<br />
<br />
<br />
202<br />
AUTHORITIES.<br />
<br />
—<br />
<br />
In recognition of the work the Society has<br />
done in copyright matters, Mr. George Haven<br />
Putnam has forwarded to the office the original of<br />
the letter which, in a curtailed form, appeared in<br />
the Slandard. He thought that the members of<br />
the Society might like to have before them a full<br />
statement of his opinion on the subject of the<br />
amendment to the United States Copyright Law.<br />
<br />
We have much pleasure in carrying out Mr.<br />
Putnam’s wishes, even though the session has<br />
closed. There are many points of interest dealt<br />
with in the letter, and it is possible that many<br />
may not have had the opportunity to study the<br />
communication which appeared in the Standard.<br />
<br />
Russta remains one of the few countries in<br />
Europe that stands outside the Bern Convention,<br />
and no copyright treaties exist with the Russian<br />
Government.<br />
<br />
It is interesting, therefore, to find that in the<br />
Treaty which has just been arranged between<br />
Germany and that country there is a clause<br />
referring to copyright property. By this clause,<br />
the Russian Government binds itself “ within<br />
three years from the date of the Treaty to enter<br />
into conference with Germany for the conclusion<br />
of a convention for the reciprocal protection of the<br />
rights of authors in Germany and Russia, in works<br />
of Art, Literature and Photographs.” Whether<br />
such efforts will come to anything it is impossible<br />
to say, but it is, ab any rate, a step in the right<br />
direction.<br />
<br />
The main reason why Russia is at present unable<br />
to enter into any Treaty consists in the fact that its<br />
internal copyright law is in a chaotic state. It would<br />
be necessary for the Russian Government to take<br />
this matter into consideration before they could<br />
bind themselves by any firm arrangement with<br />
another country ; but the fact that the Russians are<br />
willing to enter into a conference with Germany<br />
has aroused the wrath of their allies the French,<br />
and justly so, as the following statement will<br />
show :—<br />
<br />
We learn from the Echo de Paris that in 1904,<br />
2,800 theatrical pieces were represented in Russia<br />
under the protection of the Society of Dramatic<br />
Authors. Of these, 500 alone were essentially<br />
Russian ; 218 were German, and the rest, about<br />
2,000 in number, were French. It is quite clear,<br />
then, that the French have a sound cause for<br />
complaint. The same paper states that for every<br />
nine volumes published in Russia, three are<br />
Russian, six are French.<br />
<br />
It is to be hoped that if Germany is able to make<br />
some arrangement with the Russian Government,<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
other European countries will do so also, and that<br />
finally, Russia will join the Bern Convention.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Tus annual meeting of the Royal Literary<br />
Fund was held at the society’s rooms in Adelphi<br />
Terrace on March 8th.<br />
<br />
The report showed that during the year 1904<br />
£2,680 was granted to 33 applicants.<br />
<br />
Mr. Edmund Gosse, who took the chair, in pro-<br />
posing the adoption of the report, made some ex-<br />
ceedingly interesting remarks on the purposes of<br />
the fund. He stated that the managers of the<br />
fund were trying to correct as far as they could,<br />
and in strict relation to literary merit, the injus-<br />
tices of fate and accident. No one need consider<br />
it an indignity to accept the help of the fund. He<br />
pointed out that it was too commonly supposed<br />
that there was no method of drawing attention to<br />
a case save that of a direct appeal from the author<br />
who wanted help. That was not so. In the<br />
majority of instances it was from the report of<br />
others that the council learnt of those misfortunes<br />
which appealed most vividly to its sympathies.<br />
ok it was that friends could most practically<br />
<br />
elp.<br />
<br />
What.Mr. Gosse stated in his remarks applies<br />
with equal force to the Pension Fund of the<br />
Society of Authors.<br />
<br />
It often occurs that those who are most in need<br />
of assistance retire from the publicity of a per-<br />
sonal appeal. It is essential, therefore, that their<br />
friends should take the matter up and give the<br />
assistance that their more intimate knowledge<br />
affords. All the details of the cases which come<br />
before both the Royal Literary Fund and the<br />
Society’s Pension Fund are treated in the strictest<br />
confidence, and where the aim and object of both<br />
funds is to help the most worthy, it would be a<br />
pity if, at any time, those aims and objects were<br />
turned aside owing to the lack of reliable<br />
information.<br />
<br />
We would, therefore, strongly urge those who<br />
know, to give their assistance to the management<br />
of the two funds who want to know.<br />
<br />
—_—_—_———__+—>_ +<br />
<br />
F. R. DALDY.<br />
<br />
ot -<br />
<br />
HAVE been asked to write a short account of<br />
Mr. F. R. Daldy for The Author, and I gladly<br />
avail myself of the opportunity of placing on<br />
<br />
record some account, inadequate though I. fear it 2<br />
may be, of one with whom I had worked on very<br />
close terms for nearly thirty years, and for whom L<br />
had a very genuine regard and respect.<br />
some years<br />
<br />
For before I knew him, and<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
continuously to the end of his life, Mr. Daldy’s<br />
energies were devoted mainly to the cause of copy-<br />
right, and there has been no one, during the past<br />
quarter of a century, to whom that cause owes so<br />
much as to him, and this doubtless is the reason<br />
why the Editor of 7he Author desires to pay some<br />
tribute to his memory.<br />
<br />
His latter years, in this connection, were so<br />
intimately associated with the Copyright Association<br />
that it is impossible to give any account of them<br />
without a brief mention of that body.<br />
<br />
In 1870 the need of a new Copyright Bill was<br />
urgently felt ; the Act of 1842 had been found to<br />
be inadequate to the needs of the craft of letters,<br />
which had undergone a rapid development in the<br />
intervening period. Not only did the authors<br />
require fuller protection and advantages at home,<br />
but the growing needs and aspirations of the<br />
Colonies had raised difficulties and complications<br />
which did not exist in 1842.<br />
<br />
In 1870 there were no Authors’ Society and<br />
Publishers’ Association to devote themselves<br />
exclusively to the affairs of these two classes<br />
respectively, so authors and publishers combined<br />
in 1872 to form an association to “ watch over the<br />
general interests of owners of copyright property,<br />
and to obtain early information of all measures<br />
affecting copyright property, and as opportunity<br />
offers to suggest and promote improvements in<br />
existing copyright laws.”<br />
<br />
Lord Stanhope, a veteran who had done mach to<br />
bring about the Act of 1842, was the first chair-<br />
man, and among the original members who took<br />
an active part in the proceedings were Lord<br />
Houghton, Lord Lytton, Sir Arthur Helps, Sir<br />
Charles Trevelyan, Dr. William Smith, Robert<br />
Browning, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, J.<br />
A. Froude, and Henry Reeve, while the publishers<br />
were represented by the late Thomas Longman,<br />
George Bentley, Alexander Macmillan, my father,<br />
and others.<br />
<br />
Mr. Daldy was appointed honorary secretary, a<br />
post which he held till the time of his death, which<br />
occurred only a day or two after he had attended<br />
a meeting of the Association in my house last<br />
month,<br />
<br />
For the past thirty years the relations of the<br />
Imperial Government with Canada have given rise<br />
to the chief difficulties which have beset the<br />
preparation and passing of a new Copyright Act,<br />
and in many of the negotiations which have<br />
passed between the Mother Country and the<br />
Colony, Mr. Daldy has acted as the principal go-<br />
between. He paid three visits to the Dominion<br />
“between 1872 and 1894 on behalf of the Copyright<br />
Association, for the express purpose of carrying on<br />
the negotiations, or settling some point which<br />
had arisen on emergency, and on nine different<br />
<br />
203<br />
<br />
occasions he crossed the Atlantic on similar<br />
errands. He was in close touch with successive<br />
officials of the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade,<br />
the Canadian Executive, and other departments<br />
responsible for some part of the transactions, and I<br />
am sure Lord Thring would bear testimony to the<br />
unwearying and valuable service rendered by him<br />
in the preparation of the Bill which passed the<br />
House of Lords in 1900.<br />
<br />
Mr. Daldy was indeed a mine of information in<br />
all that concerns copyright; not only had he<br />
studied all the books and State papers (in them-<br />
selves a voluminous mass) dealing with the subject,<br />
but having been in personal touch with all that<br />
was passing for many years, he was acquainted<br />
with the views of all the influential men, and could<br />
at once give an account of every turn and phase<br />
of the complicated negotiations which have taken<br />
place. I have often been surprised by the ease<br />
and readiness with which he could unravel the<br />
tangled skein in which some point or other calling<br />
for discussion, was involved.<br />
<br />
His methods were those of suaviter in modo<br />
rather than fortiter in re, and placed as he was, his<br />
success was doubtless in a great measure due to<br />
this fact. Inever heard an ill-natured or impatient<br />
word from him, in circumstances which might try<br />
the temper of any man, and I never knew him<br />
spare himself when he was called upon to assist in<br />
promoting the interests of copyright holders.<br />
<br />
In 1897 the members of the Copyright Associa-<br />
tion subscribed to present him with a service of<br />
plate in recognition of the valuable aid which he<br />
had rendered to the cause—practically gratuitously,<br />
for except.the payment of his expenses in going to<br />
Canada, he received no remuneration for his work.<br />
<br />
The gift, together with an address signed by a<br />
large number of leading authors and publishers,<br />
was formally presented to him by Lord Avebury.<br />
<br />
Mr. Daldy claimed descent from the famous<br />
Aldine family, after which his house at Belvedere<br />
was named. At the time of his death he was<br />
within a few months of completing his eightieth<br />
<br />
ear.<br />
<br />
? Copyright owners have lost a staunch and true<br />
ally in Francis Daldy, and I do not see at present<br />
how the special position which he occupied is to be<br />
adequately filled.<br />
<br />
JouN Murray.<br />
<br />
I should like to add to the above tribute a few<br />
words referring to Mr. Daldy’s services to the cause<br />
of International Copyright.<br />
<br />
At the time of the negotiation of the Bern<br />
Convention, Mr. Daldy supplied the British Dele-<br />
gates with the most complete information in regard<br />
to the complicated matters under discussion. He<br />
<br />
was present at Bern throughout the negotiations,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
204<br />
<br />
and it is not too much to say that the successful<br />
result was in great part due to the complete know-<br />
ledge of the subject which he placed unreservedly<br />
at the disposal of the British delegates.<br />
<br />
For a long period of years all those who had<br />
been officially connected with the question of<br />
International Copyright have learnt to rely upon<br />
Mr. Daldy’s knowledge and experience, which<br />
have always been given with perfect sincerity and<br />
single-mindedness. He has sought no reward nor<br />
public acknowledgment of the services thus<br />
rendered—services which were given gratuitously,<br />
and even enthusiastically, to promote the cause<br />
which he had at heart. His place will not readily<br />
be filled.<br />
<br />
H. G. Berane.<br />
<br />
—_____—_—>__—__<br />
<br />
UNITED STATES NOTES.<br />
<br />
— 1 —_<br />
<br />
ISCUSSION seems to be in the literary<br />
atmosphere of America just now. Mr.<br />
Howells’s half-serious attack upon the<br />
<br />
International Copyright Act at the end of last<br />
year was naturally not allowed to pass, his con-<br />
tentions being riddled through and through by<br />
Mr. Putnam and Mr. George Platt Brett, not to<br />
speak of various leader-writers in the literary<br />
journals. One of these last, not content with<br />
confuting the rash novelist and reproving him<br />
for the manner in which he had raised “this<br />
buried subject of discussion,” proceeded to advo-<br />
cate an amendment of the law in favour of the<br />
further protection of English and Continental<br />
authors. It was pointed out that the double<br />
type-setting provision was inserted at the bidding<br />
of mere class-interests, and that the case of trans-<br />
lated works was still unsatisfactory.<br />
<br />
Then the question of the ethics of book-selling<br />
has been on the carpet. A correspondent of the<br />
Publishers’ Weekly put the purely business view<br />
point with refreshing vigour, inveighing especially<br />
against the impolicy of recommending books to<br />
customers on any ground but that of their recorded<br />
sales. One fears that he may be right ; but his<br />
conclusion that he would prefer the epitaph ‘‘ Here<br />
lies a successful bookseller” to the proposed “ He<br />
died an honest man” is surely a shade too cynical.<br />
<br />
Again, we have Mr. Charles Leonard Moore in<br />
the Dial making a venomous onslaught upon the<br />
American literary instinct, which he finds expressed<br />
in the formula “to live better and save more,”<br />
taken from an insurance prospectus. According to<br />
this writer, it is all the fault of women, commer-<br />
cialism, and the absence of outside pressure that<br />
things are so bad with our people. ‘The result is<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
that members become college professors, and so “ dry<br />
up and blow away,” whilst “ poets are driven into<br />
business and artists into exile.” This is indicting<br />
a nation with a vengeance. But, as yet, we haye<br />
seen no reply to it. =<br />
<br />
The very latest hare to be started is the condition<br />
of poetry—is there a “slump” in it, and, if so, why ?<br />
This, of course, began on your side with the poet<br />
Laureate’s address. Here it has been set on foot<br />
by that vivacious periodical, the Critic, which, by<br />
the bye, has amalgamated with the Boston Literary<br />
World. As in most symposiums, the issues became<br />
rather confused, some contributors taking into con-<br />
sideration poetry, both classic and contemporary,<br />
others only the latter ; whilst to some the criterion<br />
of health is sales, to others quality also. One is<br />
glad to find on the side of those who deny the<br />
slump Messrs. Houghton, Miffin & Co. and Mr,<br />
Richard G. Badger. Mr. Clinton Scollard gives up<br />
the puzzle set him by the editor ; but most of the<br />
others are dogmatic enough. Amongst the slum-<br />
pers, Mr. Maurice F. Egan puts down the débddcle<br />
to the decay of the art of home reading, the con-<br />
ventionality and academicism of the poets, and<br />
the lack of seriousness of the press. There is<br />
no doubt something in the first two causes, but the<br />
last, which is insisted upon by Mr. Cale Young Rice,<br />
but is best put by Robert Underwood Johnson, is<br />
to our thinking, the most cogent reason. Com-<br />
petent criticism of verse is badly needed in America.<br />
Not that this is sufficient to call poetry into being,<br />
if it be true that the spirit of the age is against it,<br />
and that the “gradual sophistication of the young”<br />
destroys the taste for it.<br />
<br />
One comment dropped in the course of the dis-<br />
cussion arrides us not a little. After the mournful<br />
statement that style in prose counts for almost<br />
nothing to-day, Mr. William C. Wilkinson proceeds +<br />
“When I was a youth, successful business men<br />
deferred to authors. Authors nowadays are apt to<br />
defer to successful business men.” We confess we<br />
should enjoy the experience of being deferred to by<br />
a successful business man ; but we have our doubts<br />
as to whether there was ever author who sayoured<br />
this particular morsel.<br />
<br />
The short story competition in connection with<br />
Collier’s Weekly, the awards in which}were announced<br />
a short time since, presented some features of<br />
interest. Mrs. Wharton, Margaret Deland, and<br />
Mr. Alden were among the prize-winners ; but a<br />
good proportion of the nine were unknown names.<br />
Senator Lodge disagreed with his colleagues, Mr.<br />
White and Mr. Page, as to the adjudication of the<br />
first two prizes, holding that Mrs. Wharton’s “The<br />
Best Man” to be by far the best composition sent<br />
in. The fact that only four writers wrote “what<br />
might be called foreign stories” was, in Mr. White's<br />
view, “the most hopeful thing for real literature<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Qo ed OS<br />
<br />
pepe CD<br />
<br />
oq<br />
eE<br />
<br />
if<br />
<br />
16<br />
toh<br />
199<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
in America. (We may remark parenthetically<br />
that “a foreign book” figured at the top of the<br />
“biggest sellers” last month).<br />
<br />
Other features of the competition were the com-<br />
plete absence of civil war stories or Indian fighting<br />
tales, and the comparative rarity of historical<br />
setting of any kind. Modernity, in fact, largely<br />
prevailed. The judges encountered two auto-<br />
mobiles, a battleship, a big prairie-type engine, a<br />
pianola, a police scandal, a freak-woman reporter ;<br />
besides innumerable trained nurses, five o’clock<br />
commuters’ trains, and telephone buzzers.<br />
<br />
The favourite locale was New York, the desert<br />
west of the Rockies coming next, followed by New<br />
England and California. There was one war story,<br />
placed in the Philippines, whilst J apan and Alaska<br />
were the theatre of action in single tales.<br />
<br />
There is not much to record of the literary pro-<br />
ducts of the present year so far as it has gone yet.<br />
The highest native “big seller,’ Mr. Thomas<br />
Dixon’s “The Clansman,” is a story of the South<br />
during the Reconstruction period.” It has slight<br />
literary merit and is full of anachronisms, but<br />
contains some good chapters dealing with the<br />
conspiracy of the Ku Klux Klan.<br />
<br />
Much superior as literature is another Recon-<br />
struction tale, Emerson Hough’s “The Law of the<br />
Land.” It is curious as being the work of a<br />
northerner.<br />
<br />
“ Bethany,” a novel of Georgian life just pre-<br />
vious to the Civil War and touching upon it in its<br />
early stage, has the merit of sincerity and some<br />
pictorial power. The author, in this case, Thomas<br />
E. Watson, hails from the south,<br />
<br />
Burton E. Stevenson’s “ The Marathon<br />
Mystery,” is a capital detective story, though the<br />
accuracy of its dialect has been impugned.<br />
<br />
“ Cabbages and Kings,” by O. Henry, a book of<br />
Central American short stories, has humour and<br />
spirit, as well as an excellent background.<br />
<br />
A notable book announced for immediate publi-<br />
cation by McClurg is the autobiography of the<br />
late Theodore Thomas, the musician.<br />
<br />
“The Self-made Man” is not yet disposed of ;<br />
“His Wife’s Letters to Her Son” is the latest<br />
pendant promised to Mr. Lorimer’s work.<br />
<br />
Mr. G. W. Winkley has published “Personal<br />
Reminiscences of John Brown, the hero,” with an<br />
introduction by Frank B. Sauborn.<br />
<br />
The new edition, for which Mr. Herbert M.<br />
Lloyd is responsible, of Lewis Morgan’s “ League<br />
of the Ho-de-no-saunee or Troquois,” is an excel-<br />
lent reprint of aninvaluable work. It has personal<br />
reminiscences of Morgan by Charles T. Porter, his<br />
<br />
08 collaborator, and embodies his own corrections.<br />
oM Morgan’s ethnological investigations are well<br />
i known, and _ their<br />
‘976 over-estimated.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
importance can scarcely be<br />
<br />
205<br />
<br />
William Canfield’s “Tegends of the Troquois”<br />
has a more purely literary interest. But both<br />
books deserve more than a specialist’s public,<br />
<br />
The latest complete exposition of “The Monroe<br />
Doctrine” comes from T. B. Edgington, of the<br />
Memphis Bar. He illustrates its most recent<br />
phases, as seen in the Venezuela Boundary Case<br />
and the Panama Canal Treaty.<br />
<br />
There have appeared two volumes of Professor<br />
G. Santyana’s “The Life of Reason ” ; vol. xi. of<br />
Dr. Reuben Thwaite’s « Early Western Travels,”<br />
containing Part I. of Faux’s “ Memorable Days in<br />
America ” (1819-20) ; and vol. xxi. of “The<br />
Philippine Islands,” edited by Emma H. Blair<br />
and James A. Robertson.<br />
<br />
Mr. T. Nelson Page in “The Negro ”<br />
great racial question calm consideration.<br />
<br />
“The Future of Road Making in America” is a<br />
symposium on an important subject by Archer B.<br />
Hulbert and others, published by the Clark<br />
Company.<br />
<br />
Mr. Henry James has consented to a kind of<br />
informal interview during his visit to America,<br />
He has been much written about of late as a<br />
matter of course.<br />
<br />
The obituary list of 1905 already includes<br />
Theodore Thomas, the creator of modern American<br />
music, whose best work was done at Chicago, but<br />
was begun at New York ; John White Chadwick,<br />
the biographer of Channing and Theodore Parker ;<br />
L. Clarke Davis, father of Richard Harding Davis,<br />
and some time editor of the Ledger ; Alpheus<br />
Spring Packarel, many years Professor at Brown<br />
University, and author of some 400 scientific<br />
monographs, many of them of international repu-<br />
tation ; and William Cowper-Prime, vice-president<br />
of the New York Metropolitan Museum, whose<br />
fine collection of wood engravings is destined for<br />
Princeton. Nor must we omit General Lewis<br />
Wallace, best known as the author of “ Ben Hur,”<br />
but who also wrote, amongst other works, “The<br />
Fair God,” a fine Mexican story, and a life of<br />
President Benjamin Harrison, a veteran of the<br />
Mexican and Civil Wars. He was some time<br />
United States Minister to Turkey.<br />
<br />
gives the<br />
<br />
Oo<br />
<br />
AUTHORS AND THE STAGE SOCIETY,<br />
<br />
—— 1+ —<br />
<br />
HOSE members of the Society of Authors,<br />
fe whose ambitions lie in the direction of play<br />
writing would do well to bear in mind the<br />
<br />
use which they may make of the Stage Society.<br />
One of the great difficulties which beset the path<br />
of the new dramatist is the impossibility of getting<br />
his plays produced. This is not entirely the fault<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
204<br />
<br />
and it is not too much to say that the successful<br />
result was in great part due to the complete know-<br />
ledge of the subject which he placed unreservedly<br />
at the disposal of the British delegates.<br />
<br />
For a long period of years all those who had<br />
been officially connected with the question of<br />
International Copyright have learnt to rely upon<br />
Mr. Daldy’s knowledge and experience, which<br />
have always been given with perfect sincerity and<br />
single-mindedness. He has sought no reward nor<br />
public acknowledgment of the services thus<br />
rendered—services which were given gratuitously,<br />
and even enthusiastically, to promote the cause<br />
which he had at heart. His place will not readily<br />
be filled.<br />
<br />
H. G. BERGNE.<br />
<br />
—__—_—_—_—_——_1—__+—___——_<br />
<br />
UNITED STATES NOTES.<br />
<br />
—_1—~>—+—_<br />
<br />
ISCUSSION seems to be in the literary<br />
atmosphere of America just now. Mr.<br />
Howells’s half-serious attack upon the<br />
<br />
International Copyright Act at the end of last<br />
rear was naturally not allowed to pass, his con-<br />
tentions being riddled through and through by<br />
Mr. Putnam and Mr. George Platt Brett, not to<br />
speak of various leader-writers in the literary<br />
journals. One of these last, not content with<br />
confuting the rash novelist and reproving him<br />
for the manner in which he had raised “this<br />
buried subject of discussion,” proceeded to advo-<br />
cate an amendment of the law in favour of the<br />
further protection of English and Continental<br />
authors. It was pointed out that the double<br />
type-setting provision was inserted at the bidding<br />
of mere class-interests, and that the case of trans-<br />
lated works was still unsatisfactory.<br />
<br />
Then the question of the ethics of book-selling<br />
has been on the carpet. A correspondent of the<br />
Publishers’ Weekly put the purely business view<br />
point with refreshing vigour, inveighing especially<br />
against the impolicy of recommending books to<br />
customers on any ground but that of their recorded<br />
sales. One fears that he may be right ; but his<br />
conclusion that he would prefer the epitaph ‘“ Here<br />
lies a successful bookseller ” to the proposed ‘“ He<br />
died an honest man” is surely a shade too cynical.<br />
<br />
Again, we have Mr. Charles Leonard Moore in<br />
the Dial making a venomous onslaught upon the<br />
American literary instinct, which he finds expressed<br />
in the formula “to live better and save more,”<br />
taken from an insurance prospectus. According to<br />
this writer, it is all the fault of women, commer-<br />
cialism, and the absence of outside pressure that<br />
things are so bad with our people, The result is<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
that members become college professors, and so “dry<br />
up and blow away,” whilst “poets are driven into<br />
business and artists into exile.” This is indicting<br />
a nation with a vengeance. But, as yet, we have<br />
seen no reply to it. ee<br />
<br />
The very latest hare to be started is the condition<br />
of poetry—is there a “slump” in it, and, if so, why ?<br />
This, of course, began on your side with the poet<br />
Laureate’s address. Here it has been set on foot<br />
by that vivacious periodical, the Critic, which, by<br />
the bye, has amalgamated with the Boston Literary<br />
World. As in most symposiums, the issues became<br />
rather confused, some contributors taking into con-<br />
sideration poetry, both classic and contemporary,<br />
others only the latter ; whilst to some the criterion<br />
of health is sales, to others quality also. One is<br />
glad to find on the side of those who deny the<br />
slump Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. and Mr,<br />
Richard G. Badger. Mr. Clinton Scollard gives up<br />
the puzzle set him by the editor ; but most of the<br />
others are dogmatic enough. Amongst the slum-<br />
pers, Mr. Maurice F. Egan puts down the débacle<br />
to the decay of the art of home reading, the con-<br />
ventionality and academicism of the poets, and<br />
the lack of seriousness of the press. There is<br />
no doubt something in the first two causes, but the<br />
last, which is insisted upon by Mr. Cale Young Rice,<br />
but is best put by Robert Underwood Johnson, is<br />
to our thinking, the most cogent reason. Com-<br />
petent criticism of verse is badly needed in America.<br />
Not that this is sufficient to call poetry into being,<br />
if it be true that the spirit of the age is against it,<br />
and that the “gradual sophistication of the young”<br />
destroys the taste for it.<br />
<br />
One comment dropped in the course of the dis-<br />
cussion arrides us not a little. After the mournful<br />
statement that style in prose counts for almost<br />
nothing to-day, Mr. William C. Wilkinson proceeds :<br />
“ When I was a youth, successful business men<br />
deferred to authors. Authors nowadays are apt to<br />
defer to successful business men.” We confess we<br />
should enjoy the experience of being deferred to by<br />
a successful business man ; but we have our doubts<br />
as to whether there was ever author who savoured<br />
this particular morsel.<br />
<br />
The short story competition in connection with<br />
Obilier’s Weekly, the awards in whichiwere announced<br />
a short time since, presented some features of<br />
<br />
interest. Mrs. Wharton, Margaret Deland, and<br />
<br />
Mr. Alden were among the prize-winners ; but a<br />
good proportion of the nine were unknown names.<br />
Senator Lodge disagreed with his colleagues, Mr.<br />
White and Mr. Page, as to the adjudication of the<br />
first two prizes, holding that Mrs. Wharton’s “The<br />
Best Man” to be by far the best composition sent<br />
in. The fact that only four writers wrote “what<br />
might be called foreign stories” was, in Mr. White’s<br />
view, “the most hopeful thing for real literature<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
epntrnioneeR Ro wins<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
in America. (We may remark parenthetically<br />
that “a foreign book” figured at the top of the<br />
“biggest sellers ” last month).<br />
<br />
Other features of the competition were the com-<br />
plete absence of civil war stories or Indian fighting<br />
tales, and the comparative rari ty of historical<br />
setting of any kind. Modernity, in fact, largely<br />
pevailed. The judges encountered two auto-<br />
mobiles, a battleship, a big prairie-type engine, a<br />
pianola, a police scandal, a freak-woman reporter ;<br />
besides innumerable trained nurses, five o’clock<br />
commuters’ trains, and telephone buzzers.<br />
<br />
The favourite Jocale was New York, the desert<br />
west of the Rockies coming next, followed by New<br />
England and California. There was one war story,<br />
placed in the Philippines, whilst J apan and Alaska<br />
were the theatre of action in single tales.<br />
<br />
There is not much to record of the literary pro-<br />
ducts of the present year so far as it has gone yet,<br />
The highest native “big seller,” Mr. Thomas<br />
Dixon’s “The Clansman,” is a story of the South<br />
during the Reconstruction period. It has slight<br />
literary merit and is full of anachronisms, but<br />
contains some good chapters dealing with the<br />
conspiracy of the Ku Klux Klan.<br />
<br />
Much superior as literature is another Recon-<br />
struction tale, Emerson Hough’s “The Law of the<br />
Land.” It is curious as being the work of a<br />
northerner.<br />
<br />
“ Bethany,” a novel of Georgian life just pre-<br />
vious to the Civil War and touching upon it in its<br />
early stage, has the merit of sincerity and some<br />
pictorial power. The author, in this case, Thomas<br />
KE. Watson, hails from the south.<br />
<br />
Burton EE. Stevenson’s “ The Marathon<br />
Mystery,” is a capital detective story, though the<br />
accuracy of its dialect has been impugned.<br />
<br />
“ Cabbages and Kings,” by O. Henry, a book of<br />
Central American short stories, has humour and<br />
Spirit, as well as an excellent background.<br />
<br />
A notable book announced for immediate publi-<br />
cation by McClurg is the autobiography of the<br />
late Theodore Thomas, the musician.<br />
<br />
“The Self-made Man” is not yet disposed of ;<br />
“His Wife’s Letters to Her Son” is the latest<br />
pendant promised to Mr. Lorimer’s work.<br />
<br />
Mr. G. W. Winkley has published “Personal<br />
Reminiscences of John Brown, the hero,” with an<br />
introduction by Frank B. Sauborn,<br />
<br />
The new edition, for which Mr. Herbert M.<br />
Lloyd is responsible, of Lewis Morgan’s “ League<br />
of the Ho-de-no-saunee or Troquois,” is an excel-<br />
lent reprint of aninvaluable work. It has personal<br />
reminiscences of Morgan by Charles T. Porter, his<br />
collaborator, and embodies hig own corrections.<br />
Morgan’s ethnological investigations are well<br />
known, and _ their importance can scarcely be<br />
over-estimated.<br />
<br />
205<br />
<br />
William Canfield’s « Legends of the Troquois”<br />
has a more purely literary interest, But both<br />
books deserve more than a Specialist’s public.<br />
<br />
The latest complete exposition of “The Monroe<br />
Doctrine” comes from T. B, Edgington, of the<br />
Memphis Bar. He illustrates its most recent<br />
phases, as seen in the Venezuela Boundary Case<br />
and the Panama Canal Treaty.<br />
<br />
There have appeared two volumes of Professor<br />
G. Santyana’s “The Life of Reason” ; vol. xi. of<br />
Dr. Reuben Thwaite’s « Early Western Travels,”<br />
containing Part I. of Faux’s “ Memorable Days in<br />
America ” (1819-20) ; and vol. xxi. of « The<br />
Philippine Islands,” edited by Emma H. Blair<br />
and James A. Robertson.<br />
<br />
Mr. T. Nelson Page in “'The Negro” gives the<br />
great racial question calm consideration.<br />
<br />
“The Future of Road Making in America” is a<br />
symposium on an important subject by Archer B.<br />
Hulbert and others, published by the Clark<br />
Company.<br />
<br />
Mr. Henry James has consented to a kind of<br />
informal interview during his visit to America.<br />
He has been much written about of late as a<br />
matter of course.<br />
<br />
The obituary list of 1905 already includes<br />
Theodore Thomas, the creator of modern American<br />
music, whose best work was done at Chicago, but<br />
was begun at New York ; John White Chadwick,<br />
the biographer of Channing and Theodore Parker ;<br />
L. Clarke Davis, father of Richard Harding Davis,<br />
and some time editor of the Ledger ; Alpheus<br />
Spring Packarel, many years Professor at Brown<br />
University, and author of some 400 scientific<br />
monographs, many of them of international repu-<br />
tation ; and William Cowper-Prime, vice-president<br />
of the New York Metropolitan Museum, whose<br />
fine collection of wood engravings is destined for<br />
Princeton. Nor must we omit General Lewis<br />
Wallace, best known as the author of “ Ben Hur,”<br />
but who also wrote, amongst other works, “The<br />
Fair God,” a fine Mexican story, and a life of<br />
President Benjamin Harrison, a veteran of the<br />
Mexican and Civil Wars. He was some time<br />
United States Minister to Turkey.<br />
<br />
——_+~>—-<br />
<br />
AUTHORS AND THE STAGE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
——<br />
<br />
HOSE members of the Society of Authors,<br />
T whose ambitions lie in the direction of play<br />
writing would do well to bear in mind the<br />
<br />
use which they may make of the Stage Society.<br />
One of the great difficulties which beset the path<br />
of the new dramatist is the impossibility of getting<br />
his plays produced. This is not entirely the fault<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
206<br />
<br />
of the theatrical managers. The work of the<br />
beginner, even when most promising, is apt to be<br />
unsuited for obtaining solid financial success In the<br />
theatre. In play-writing, experience—especially the<br />
experience gained from an actual production—<br />
counts for so much. And if the beginner<br />
cannot get a production, how is he to get experi-<br />
ence? This is where the Stage Society can be of<br />
assistance to him. For the Stage Society does not<br />
exist to make profits but to foster and encourage<br />
drama. It gives performances of the best examples<br />
of the contemporary Continental stage in order to<br />
give its members an opportunity of seeing works<br />
of artistic value which would otherwise never see<br />
the light in a London theatre. And it also gives<br />
performances of the work of English writers who<br />
thave not hitherto had plays produced and to whom<br />
the practical instruction in technique to be learned<br />
from a production will be of value. During the<br />
-six years of its existence the Society has produced<br />
thirty plays, and of these nearly a third have been<br />
the work of English dramatists who had not<br />
previously had a play produced.<br />
<br />
It is impossible for those who have not had<br />
<br />
-experience of dramatic writing to understand the<br />
fall value which this opportunity of seeing his work<br />
performed under proper stage conditions by a<br />
picked professional cast may be to the young play-<br />
wright. To watch one’s own play day after day<br />
through rehearsal, to realise with growing clearness<br />
-where the dialogue is weak or strong, which are the<br />
the situations which “ get across the foot-lights,”<br />
-and why they do s0, is a training in the art of play-<br />
writing such as nothing else can give. Much may<br />
be gained by a careful study of good models—<br />
Ibsen, Sudermann, Brieux, Hauptman, Augier and<br />
the younger Dumas—much by constant attendance<br />
at theatres and a critical examination of the plays<br />
presented, and the way they get their effects. But<br />
nothing is quite so instructive as the discipline of<br />
watching the performances of one’s own play.<br />
‘Owing to the cost of production, and to some<br />
extent also to the timidity of the ordinary<br />
manager where the work of a beginner is con-<br />
cerned, this discipline for the new playwright is<br />
practically unattainable in London at any of the<br />
regular theatres. It can be gained at a Stage<br />
Society production, and authors who wish to work<br />
for ne theatre would do well to bear the fact in<br />
mind.<br />
<br />
The office of the Stage Society is 9, Arundel<br />
Street, Strand, W.C., and plays should be addressed<br />
to the Hon. Librarian. All plays sent in are sure<br />
of careful consideration by the Council, and if they<br />
decide to produce a play the whole cost is borne by<br />
the Society. It is not necessary to be a member of<br />
the Society to have a play considered or performed,<br />
but all persons who are interested in the higher<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
drama, and wish to show their interest in a<br />
practical way, would do well to join. The subserip-<br />
tion of one guinea gives one seat at each of the<br />
Society’s productions, usually five in the year, and<br />
the entrance fee isone guinea. Further particulars<br />
and forms of application for membership may be<br />
obtained from the Secretary at 9, Arundel Street.<br />
<br />
——_1——_ +<br />
<br />
CANADIAN POSTAL RATES.<br />
<br />
st<br />
<br />
AST year some articles appeared in The<br />
Author on the question of Colonial postage,<br />
with special reference to the introduction of<br />
<br />
United States magazines into Canada. These<br />
articles produced one or two questions in the<br />
<br />
House of Commons, but the answer of the Post- —<br />
<br />
master-General was not encouraging.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
At the time the Committee wrote to the Society 4<br />
<br />
of Authors in Canada and asked them to do what<br />
they could to assist the movement, and the<br />
Canadian Society has just forwarded the following<br />
resolution which has been passed by their Executive<br />
Committee :<br />
<br />
“That we, the Executive Committee of the<br />
Canadian Society of Authors, would respectfully<br />
urge upon the Postmaster-General of Great Britain<br />
the desirability of considering the question of @<br />
cheaper postal rate on newspapers and periodicals<br />
between Great Britain and the Colonies. During<br />
the last fifteen years United States periodicals have<br />
almost entirely displaced British periodicals in this<br />
market, owing to the low rate of postage charged<br />
by the United States Government. The influence<br />
on this country once exercised by British periodicals<br />
has been displaced by an influence which cannot be<br />
said to be in the interests of Imperial understand-<br />
ing and solidarity, and is hostile to the extension<br />
of British trade throughout the Colonies.”<br />
<br />
The Canadian Authors’ Society is still in its<br />
infancy, but, no doubt, will be able to accomplish<br />
vigorous work on behalf of the authors of the<br />
Dominion if it continues as it has begun.<br />
<br />
Prof. Goldwin Smith is the honorary president<br />
of the Society, the Honble. G. W. Ross is the<br />
president. The treasurer is Mr. J. A. Cooper, the<br />
editor of the Canadian Magazine. :<br />
<br />
That the Canadians do not desire the matter<br />
lie idle is evident from the following article whi<br />
appeared in the Zoronto Globe :—<br />
<br />
IMPERIAL AND AMERICAN POSTAGE.<br />
<br />
Sir George Drummond started an interesting discussion<br />
in the Senate a few days ago by moving a resolution to call<br />
the attention of the Government to the discrimination<br />
favour of American and against British periodicals 1<br />
Canada, and to affirm the principle that postal charges ©<br />
<br />
bs<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
periodicals within the Empire should be lower than those<br />
on matter passing between it and any foreign country. Sir<br />
George gave specific instances of glaring discrimination,<br />
and pointed out the inevitable political and commercial<br />
effect of the impetus thus given to the importation of<br />
American literature and advertisements.<br />
<br />
Asa matter of fact, many magazines are sent from the<br />
United States into Canada as freight, and are distributed<br />
nere by agents, the country receiving little or no revenue<br />
from their circulation. It would be easy to make these<br />
dutiable, and go some way toward equalising conditions as<br />
between British and American magazine publishers. Those<br />
sent into this country by mail pay no postage to our<br />
Government, being carried free under the postal convention<br />
of 1875. To cancel this convention and put the country<br />
under the international postal union would considerably<br />
reduce the annual deficit of the post office department,<br />
which at present handles an immense volume of foreign<br />
periodical literature at the expense of Canada.<br />
<br />
All who took part in the debate on Sir George’s resolu-<br />
tion—Senator Scott, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and Sir Richard<br />
Cartwright—agreed with the mover in his attitude, depre-<br />
cated the advantage afforded to the American publisher<br />
over his British competitors, and regretted the persistence<br />
of the British Government in refusing to aid in removing<br />
the discrimination against the latter. Canadians have no<br />
objection to receiving United States magazines at a cheap<br />
tate, but they would like to get British magazines of the<br />
same classes at no greater cost. It certainly does not tend<br />
to promote either Imperial feeling or British trade in<br />
Canada to have British periodicals handicapped in their<br />
circulation while American magazines with their advertise-<br />
ments are freely distributed at our expense. The Canadian<br />
Government, which forced on ocean penny postage, should<br />
be equal to finding a remedy that would be at once popular<br />
and effective.<br />
<br />
—_———_+——_2—_______<br />
<br />
BUTTER, MUSIC, AND COPYRIGHT.<br />
<br />
— +<br />
<br />
UNDRY startling reflections are suggested<br />
by the last speech from the Throne. “A<br />
Bill,” said that speech, “ will be introduced<br />
for amending the law for the prevention of the<br />
adulteration of butter.” Good: butter should<br />
certainly not be adulterated. Our masses should<br />
have good butter—or what does civilisation amount<br />
to? We are all agreed as to this; and the Bill<br />
will be passed without opposition. But then<br />
comes in the parodox: Why make a law to prevent<br />
people stealing a part of our butter, and make no<br />
law to prevent other people stealing the whole of<br />
it? You reply that such a law already exists.<br />
Butter, you point out, is well looked after, well<br />
understood. Our millions use it—or something<br />
like it—every day. Butter is quite safe. It<br />
cannot be stolen.<br />
<br />
That depends. If you permit people to steal<br />
from a man his power of purchasing butter, you<br />
permit them to steal his butter ag certainly as if<br />
they took it directly away from him in firkins or<br />
pound packages. The only difference is that, in<br />
the latter case, the theft is removed a single step<br />
from the direct taking. Mark thatstep. For that<br />
<br />
207<br />
<br />
single step, so easy to understand—the pun was<br />
not intentional—itself so easy to remove, one<br />
would also think, makes, when it comes to practice,<br />
the most profound difference for practical politics,<br />
becomes an insuperable barrier.<br />
<br />
A casual observer, watching our legislature at<br />
work, would miss the point. He would say that<br />
the manifest object of our legislature was not to<br />
prevent acts of stealing generally, but only the<br />
stealing of particular things in a particular way ;<br />
since it does not prevent the same things being<br />
stolen if they are stolen in a roundabout way.<br />
Music, for example, may thus be the means of<br />
butter being stolen, and bread and butter.<br />
<br />
I have no excessive sense of the importance of<br />
music ; I am only an ordinary lover of it. But<br />
music afforded to me a very interesting case of<br />
this curious anomaly in our midst: that as a<br />
practical and highly-civilised nation we seem quite<br />
unable to get over that step which divides the<br />
direct stealing of our butter from the indirect<br />
stealing of it by way of music.<br />
<br />
As the case#of music illustrated this more and<br />
more for mefI began, some years ago, to be more<br />
and more fnterested in music and music-stealers.<br />
I began some time in the last century, but I shall<br />
not go further back than the year 1902. In that<br />
year, certain music publishers and others interested<br />
in music, by dint of tremendous efforts, managed<br />
to get a sort of Bill passed to prevent people<br />
stealing music, to put an end to the music-pirate.<br />
And an end to him I thought had been put when<br />
the Bill passed into law. But, as ill-luck or<br />
incompetence had it, the Bill omitted to include<br />
certain provisions which rendered it practically<br />
nugatory as a remedial measure. After all the<br />
trouble involved this was fiasco indeed. The<br />
stealing of music went on just as before; and the<br />
gentlemen interested in music—a noble Earl as<br />
their leader—put their heads together once again.<br />
Next year, 1903, they introduced another Bill<br />
which got as far as its second reading in the Lower<br />
House, and there expired of suffocation in the way<br />
we are used to seeing Bills expire. Not to be<br />
daunted, these gentlemen tried yet another Bill<br />
last year. A sort of remnant of it survived many<br />
a stormy passage till it got as far as the ‘‘ Report”<br />
stage, when it also was talked out. Its promoters<br />
had the consolation of knowing that, even had it<br />
passed, it would have been almost as useless as the<br />
Act of 1902. They finally relinquished altogether<br />
the hope of getting a private measure passed, and<br />
invoked the aid of the Government. Just before<br />
the present House met, it was, therefore, rumoured<br />
that the Home Office was to take the case of<br />
music-stealers into its charge. The House meets,<br />
plunges into the sea of fiscal, Irish, and other<br />
controversies, and we hear no more of music. The<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
208<br />
<br />
Government has to look after more important<br />
things, including its own precious existence,’ yet<br />
not forgetting even butter. gos<br />
<br />
That, up to the present, is the case for music, In<br />
which, as I said, I am not overwhelmingly<br />
interested. It only illustrates what a practical<br />
and highly-civilised nation we are. Butter—<br />
everybody’s need, the poor man’s especially—no<br />
part of it must be stolen from us. But music—<br />
one step aside from butter—resists all attempts to<br />
deal with it, to prevent people stealing it.<br />
<br />
‘And if that is the case with music, what is likely<br />
to be the case with the whole law of Copyright<br />
in which I am greatly interested, of which music<br />
and the care of it forms only a single but significant<br />
item? To speak of it as affording any hope of<br />
present amendment seems absurd. Yet the fact of<br />
its embracing the whole subject of the due regu-<br />
lation of literary and artistic property, the fact of<br />
its largeness and importance, might lead one to<br />
imagine that it would have its vastly greater<br />
claims publicly recognised.<br />
<br />
Vain idea! The Publishers’ Association, the<br />
Copyright Association, the Authors’ Society, the<br />
majority of authors themselves, and, lastly, the<br />
very gentlemen most likely to gain by its present<br />
inadequacy, to lose by its amendment, the lawyers,<br />
all are practically unanimous in desiring its<br />
amendment. We need not go into further details.<br />
We may take it that these individuals and associ-<br />
ations represent all the important interests con-<br />
cerned. ‘They include men of such distinguished<br />
names, men of such light and leading in the world,<br />
that not only are they not likely to be wrong in<br />
their desire, but, being right, it is inconceivable<br />
that such men should have now been agitating to<br />
get a reform of copyright for more than ten years<br />
and should up to the present have got absolutely<br />
nothing.<br />
<br />
Lord Thring’s Bill recasting the whole law<br />
passed the House of Lords in 1899 and 1900. It<br />
was then sent to the Colonies for their assent,<br />
recasting, as it also did, our relations with them.<br />
Australia expressed her approval of it. Canada—<br />
our never-never land for copyright purposes—was<br />
still demurring when we last heard of it. It had<br />
been mentioned in the Speech from the Throne at<br />
the opening of Parliament in 1901. It has not<br />
been mentioned since. It appears to have expired<br />
of senile decay.<br />
<br />
Meantime, the world outside passes us by. Other<br />
nations codify their law. Little countries like Den-<br />
mark and Sweden make a step forward. Even<br />
Russia—Russia, mark you !—talks about copyright<br />
reform. Our Parliament alone, including within<br />
it several distinguished authors, the Premier<br />
himself amongst them, says nothing, does nothing.<br />
Now and then, once a year or so, to show that we<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
are still alive, an author will burst out sporadically<br />
and start some side-issue—should we retaliate on<br />
America for her treatment of us? and so forth—<br />
like a red-herring across the trail. This consoles<br />
us. And, of course, we always have the consolation<br />
of knowing that we are a practical and highly-<br />
civilised nation.<br />
W.<br />
<br />
——_——_0—>_+—___——_-<br />
<br />
NOTES ON AGREEMENTS.<br />
<br />
—1—~>— + —<br />
<br />
Il.<br />
To THE PUBLISHER.<br />
<br />
That in consideration of your bearing the whole<br />
of the expenses in producing and publishing the<br />
novel written by me and _ provisionally entitled<br />
<br />
, I hereby convey to you the copyright<br />
and all rights in the said novel, and further I agree<br />
to give to you the first refusal of the next ten new and<br />
original novels I may write suitable for publication in<br />
volume form on the following terms :—<br />
<br />
1. A royalty of ten per cent. on the trade selling price of<br />
all copies sold of the English edition, thirteen copies count-<br />
ing as twelve.<br />
<br />
2. A royalty of one penny per copy on all sales of the<br />
Colonial edition, thirteen copies counting as twelve.<br />
<br />
3. Ten per cent. on any sum received for the foreign<br />
rights.<br />
<br />
4. Ten per cent. on any sum received for the American<br />
copyright with simultaneous publication.<br />
<br />
5. In the event of any cheaper editions being published<br />
a royalty of five per cent. on the trade selling price<br />
thirteen copies counting as twelve.<br />
<br />
6. No royalties shall be paid on any copies given away<br />
for review or other purposes.<br />
<br />
7. In the event of the publisher disposing of copies or<br />
editions of the said novels as remainders, a royalty of five<br />
per cent. of the net amount received.<br />
<br />
8. I guarantee to you that the said novels shall be in no<br />
way whatever violations of any existing copyrights, and<br />
that they shall contain nothing of a libellous or scandalous<br />
character, and that I will indemnify you from all suits,<br />
claims and proceedings, damages and costs which may be<br />
made, taken or incurred by or against you on the ground<br />
that the said novels are infringements of copyrights, or<br />
contain anything libellous or scandalous,<br />
<br />
From the AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
The agreement printed above will prove to all<br />
those who are versed in the usual arrangements<br />
made for the sale and purchase of literary property,<br />
the ignorance of an author of the possible value of<br />
what he is selling when he endeavours to find a<br />
publisher for his book.<br />
<br />
It is only fair to preface the following remarks<br />
by stating that in the open market the buyer will<br />
always buy as cheaply as possible, and that, there-<br />
fore, the publisher, if he be so inclined, can enter into<br />
any agreement—even the one set out above—if he<br />
can find an author willing to affix his signature.<br />
But a serious cause for complaint would arise<br />
<br />
should the publisher, before purchasing the work<br />
from the author at a ridiculously low figure, mis-<br />
represent or misdirect the author as to the value<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Sook<br />
<br />
3 py ee<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
of what he is selling, or lead him to suppose that<br />
an agreement which he would not otherwise make<br />
is an ordinary form of contract. There is no such<br />
evidence in the present case. The agreement has<br />
been printed in the hope that its details may reach<br />
those who have not yet written a book, but intend<br />
uo do 0, or those who have written a book and are<br />
about to enter into an arrangement for its<br />
production.<br />
<br />
However bad and however worthless an author’s<br />
first book may be, he should under no circum-<br />
stances bind himself to a publisher for a series of<br />
books under any contract, good or bad. If the<br />
book is bad and worthless, it is fair that the pub-<br />
lisher should make a contract by which he should<br />
protect himself from the chance of loss, for this is<br />
merely ordinary business caution. If any pub-<br />
lisher cares to issue from his house bad and worth-<br />
less books as a business man, there is no reason<br />
why he should lose by the transaction, but the<br />
one book should stand or fall by itself. The first<br />
book, however, with the bad contract is frequently<br />
neither bad nor worthless ; it catches the public<br />
taste and has a considerable sale. In consequence<br />
the publisher reaps a share of the profits far larger<br />
than the author’s. The book referred to in the<br />
present agreement can hardly be worthless,<br />
otherwise the publisher would not have con-<br />
sented to undertake all the cost of production.<br />
The business man does not rashly throw his money<br />
away.<br />
<br />
For a book which, presumably, at the lowest<br />
estimate is passable, the present agreement cannot<br />
be said to be satisfactory.<br />
<br />
Ten per cent. is to be paid on the ¢rade selling<br />
price of all copies sold, 13 copies counting as<br />
12. Everyone who has-any dealings with literary<br />
property is aware that royalties, however small,<br />
frum whatever house they issue, are always paid on<br />
the published price of the book. The difference<br />
between the two stands at the ratio of about seven<br />
to twelve, or nearly fifty per cent. difference, so<br />
that if the author is paid on the /rade selling price<br />
he would get about fifty per cent. less than if he<br />
were paid on the published price of the book.<br />
The royalty is small and inadequate if paid on the<br />
published price. It is absurdly insufficient when<br />
paid on the trade selling price.<br />
<br />
On the Colonial sales a royalty of 1d. per copy<br />
is paid. This, again, is an exceedingly low<br />
royalty. The ordinary payment, when Colonial<br />
sales are made is 8d. or 4d. on every copy in<br />
sheets. One penny per copy would make the<br />
agreement between twenty-five per cent. and<br />
thirty-three and one-third per cent. lower than the<br />
usual payment.<br />
<br />
For the foreign rights the author is to receive<br />
ten per cent. Over and over again it has been<br />
<br />
209<br />
<br />
necessary to point out in The Author that these<br />
rights should not lie with the publisher, but<br />
should be under the control of the author.<br />
<br />
Again, in Clause 5 the royalty in the case of a<br />
cheaper edition is paid on the trade selling price,<br />
13 copies counted as 12. The same remarks<br />
passed with regard to Clause 1 refer to this<br />
clause also, Five per cent. is an absurdly low<br />
royalty in any event; and again, it is paid on<br />
the trade selling price, which makes it almost<br />
mfinitesimal.<br />
<br />
In Clause 6 no royalty is paid on copies given<br />
away for review or other purposes. No one desires<br />
a publisher to pay royalties on copies given away<br />
for review, but it is certainly advisable to have<br />
some closer definition of the two words “other<br />
purposes.”<br />
<br />
As a reward for this brilliant contract, and the<br />
sums that may accrue to the author therefrom, he<br />
is bound to indemnify the publisher in an ex-<br />
ceedingly liberal clause—Clause 8—from infringe-<br />
ment of copyright and libellous and scandalous<br />
matter.<br />
<br />
If the one book had a large sale the author<br />
would obtain no benefit, not even a royalty rising<br />
with its circulation, but this is not the only fault.<br />
The author is bound for ten books at the same<br />
price.<br />
<br />
It has come to our notice from time to time<br />
that some publishers have bound authors to them<br />
for two, or even three books, and it has been<br />
pointed out frequently what a severe tax this is<br />
upon the author—either when the contract is made<br />
on the same terms as the original contract, as in<br />
this case, or when, as sometimes occurs, the pub-<br />
lisher is to have only the option of publication of<br />
the next two or three books. It has also been<br />
shown that such an agreement is not a smart bit<br />
of business from the publisher’s point of view,<br />
for as soon as the tax is recognised by the<br />
author, and the contract at an end, he leaves<br />
the publisher. Whereas, if there had been no<br />
such clause, and the author had met with fair<br />
treatment, he would of a surety go back to the<br />
same publisher.<br />
<br />
No contract, with the exception of the present,<br />
has come before the Society by which the publisher<br />
has bound the author for ten books. If the<br />
author is bound toa publisher under an increasing<br />
royalty, or an improved agreement, there might be<br />
some temptation to enter into such a contract,<br />
although constant experience at the Society’s<br />
office would show what a heavy burden this is on<br />
the author’s powers; but the contract printed<br />
above, from the author’s point of view, wholly<br />
unsatisfactory for a first book by itself, becomes<br />
ludicrously impossible to contemplate for a series<br />
of ten. No author could make a living wage out<br />
<br />
<br />
210<br />
<br />
of an arrangement which would bring him in such<br />
a paltry return.<br />
<br />
No words are strong enough to condemn such<br />
a disadvantageous contract from the author’s<br />
<br />
standpoint.<br />
Gee.<br />
<br />
———_- > + —___<br />
<br />
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
TPNHE Librarian of Congress at Washington<br />
has issued his annual circular setting<br />
forth the amount of business done in<br />
<br />
1904. The increase, year by year, has been steady<br />
<br />
and continued, and it must be satisfactory to the<br />
<br />
office to find that the fees collected exceed the<br />
expenditure on salaries. The fees received during<br />
the past year amount to 75,520 dollars, and the total<br />
paid in salaries to 72,531 dollars. Not only this ;<br />
but the value of the property which the United<br />
<br />
States obtains in books, maps, and other filed<br />
<br />
matter is increasingly valuable.<br />
<br />
The total number of entries during the past<br />
year were 106,577 ; books, volumes and pamphlets<br />
number 16,690; periodicals 21,041 ; and musical<br />
compbsitions 28,740.<br />
<br />
It will be seen, therefore, that musical composi-<br />
tions yield the highest total. This may be accounted<br />
for by the fact that musical compositions need<br />
not be lithographed in the United States. The<br />
publishers, therefore, taking advantage of the<br />
reciprocity, obtain copyright to a larger extent.<br />
<br />
The largest number of entries during one day<br />
occurred on January 2nd, when 4,031 titles were<br />
registered ; the smallest number on a day in June,<br />
when only 107 titles were recorded. The increase<br />
<br />
n the total of entries over those of 1908 is 7,141.<br />
<br />
The most satisfactory point which the foreign<br />
writer should note is the smoothness with which<br />
<br />
he office undertakes its enormous task. It makes<br />
no unworthy boast in stating that at 4.30 p.m. on<br />
January 3rd, 1905, all applications received during<br />
1904 were acted upon, all registrations made, all<br />
certificates mailed.<br />
<br />
To give some idea of the extensive labour<br />
involved in carrying out this enormons work, the<br />
number of letters received at the office during the<br />
past year was 85,365—87,000 of these contained<br />
remittances—and the number of mailed matter<br />
despatched from the office was 133,244 letters.<br />
<br />
Again, these figures show an increase on the<br />
1903 mailed matter by 7,607 letters received, and<br />
by 19,000 letters despatched.<br />
<br />
—— +<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
LITERATURE AND LAW IN THE UNITED<br />
STATES. *<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
[ConcLUDED. ]<br />
<br />
HE recent decision of a Paris Court that<br />
phonographs infringe the musical author’s<br />
rights makes every case that has been tried<br />
<br />
either here or in America of interest. Phonographs<br />
are of so recent introduction that we have to look for<br />
previous decisions to cases analogous to them. In<br />
our case of Boosey v. Whight it was decided that a<br />
perforated musical scroll was not a “ copy” within<br />
the meaning of the Act. This followed the earlier<br />
American decision of Kennedy v. IcTammany to<br />
the same effect. Phonographs themselves then<br />
came up for judgment in the American case of<br />
Stern v. Rosey (1901), in which the defendant took<br />
two copyright songs, and had them sung into a<br />
phonograph in the usual way, thereby obtaining a<br />
“‘ master-record ” from which other records were<br />
then made. The Appeal Court held that such a<br />
record did not constitute a “copy,” basing its<br />
judgment on the fact that the marks upon the wax<br />
cylinders could not be read by the human eye, nor<br />
utilised in any way except as part of the mechanism<br />
of the phonograph.<br />
<br />
But, observe, that in such cases as these a Court<br />
is strictly confined to answering the question : Is<br />
or is not the copy alleged a “copy” within the<br />
meaning of the Act? Or, in other words, can<br />
redress be obtained by invoking the copyright law<br />
against infringers of this kind? since it cannot<br />
reasonably be contended that the rights of the<br />
composers of music are not to some extent<br />
encroached upon by means of these mechanical<br />
instruments. Indeed, the learned American judges<br />
in giving their decision felt it necessary to invoke<br />
the judgments in the previous analogous cases<br />
to support their view that there was no infringe-<br />
ment.<br />
<br />
In the German Statute, of 1901, especial cogni-<br />
sance is taken by that up-to-date people of phono-<br />
graphs, and it is provided that reproduction by<br />
means of them shall noé be held to be an infringe-<br />
ment of the right of reproduction provided that<br />
the reproduction do not as regards “strength and<br />
duration, tone and tempo, resemble a personal per-<br />
formance.” Observe the reasonableness of the<br />
German method of dealing with copyright, and<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* Copyright Cases: A Summary of leading American<br />
Decisions on the Law of Copyright and on Literary<br />
Property, from 1891 to 1903 ; together with the Text of the<br />
United States Copyright Statute, and a Selection of Recent<br />
Copyright Decisions of the Courts of Great Britain and<br />
Canada. Compiled by Arthur 8. Hamlin. Published for<br />
the American Publishers’ Copyright League by G. P.<br />
Putnam’s Sons. 1904. $2.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
bt,<br />
a<br />
P<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 211<br />
<br />
how very little is left by it to the wltima ratio of<br />
the law. For the German Statute provides that<br />
the communication of the essential contents of a<br />
work is an infringement: This covers everything.<br />
Then come its exceptions, amongst which are placed<br />
phonographs. Such mechanical means of repro-<br />
duction it excepts because they cannot, in its<br />
opinion, resemble a personal performance. But these<br />
fast-moving times, we shortly find, get in front,<br />
even of Germany. What about the pianola ? Does<br />
it not resemble a “ personal performance”? It<br />
certainly creates a contentious something betwixt<br />
and between, not quite mechanical, not quite<br />
personal.<br />
<br />
Now with us there are two definite rights open<br />
to infringement: (1) the copyright ; and (2) the<br />
performing right. We have seen that a perforated<br />
musical scroll is not a “copy.” We cannot get<br />
any redress at law by pleading that a copyright<br />
has been infringed in this way. Well, then, can we<br />
not get redress by pleading that performing right<br />
is infringed? We come back to the Germans,<br />
who say that mechanical reproduction is to be<br />
excepted from their general rule, that any method<br />
which reproduces the essential spirit of a work is an<br />
infringement. Why ? Because “as regards strength<br />
and duration of tone and tempo” it does not<br />
resemble a personal performance. But there is,<br />
lastly, our new friend the pianola! It seems to<br />
fulfil all these conditions, certainly strength<br />
is not lacking to it. Is it not a ‘ personal per-<br />
formance ?”<br />
<br />
The fact is, what we want, what inventive<br />
brains are gradually driving us towards, is a<br />
copyright law which makes any means by which<br />
the substance or the spirit of any literary, artistic,<br />
musical, dramatic or other copyright work is repro-<br />
duced, an infringement of the author’s right.<br />
Until we get this law, aimed at protecting the<br />
substance or the spirit of the work, we shall have<br />
no peace, but be up to our necks, as we now are, in<br />
arguments about mechanics.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Ishall stop here. Mr. Hamlin’s admirable book<br />
seems, to at least a student of copyright, worthy of<br />
even a more unconscionably long notice than I<br />
have given it, for I find that, all said and done, I<br />
have only touched the leading cases in it. I have<br />
left untouched a large body of by-path cases, many<br />
of them of great interest to the student. I have<br />
not even mentioned the “ Decisions of the Treasury<br />
Department on Questions of Importation,” reveal-<br />
ing such interesting facts as that English music<br />
need not be set up in the United States in order<br />
to enjoy copyright ; and that a book, set up in the<br />
United States, may be printed elsewhere from<br />
plates [also made elsewhere? ] and yet enjoy<br />
<br />
copyright there. Nor have I touched the great<br />
questions hanging on the copyright in and impor-<br />
tation into America of foreign classics—other than<br />
English ; which would have to form the subject of<br />
a special article all to itself. For light on these-<br />
subjects, students and business men must go to<br />
Mr. Hamlin’s book.<br />
<br />
One question, however, I must not leave un-<br />
answered. ‘The courteous Editor of The Author<br />
asks me to express an opinion as to whether our<br />
Society should publish decennially, or at least quin-<br />
quennially, a compilation similar to Mr. Hamlin’s<br />
American one (whether for sale at a nominal price<br />
to “authors” or for free distribution amongst<br />
them) which would, like his, afford them an easy<br />
means of reference to what has been done in the<br />
way of copyright litigation during the preceding<br />
five or ten years.<br />
<br />
If it were a simple question of publishing such<br />
a book, or publishing none at all, [ should be dis-<br />
tinctly in favour of publishing one. Yet there<br />
would be certain objections to such a publication.<br />
The chief one is the expense it would involve<br />
falling upon a single year of the Society’s finances.<br />
The second one is almost as important: it is the<br />
inevitable tendency of cases which occurred ten,<br />
or even five, years ago to become stale and unprofit-<br />
able after such a lapse of time. This would to<br />
some extent militate against the sale of such a<br />
book supposing it to be offered for sale. There<br />
are other less striking objections with which I<br />
shall not deal at present.<br />
<br />
But these two chief objections I would propose<br />
to remove entirely by the publication, not of a<br />
book, but of a four or eight-page pamphlet, not to<br />
be published every tenth or fifth year, but every<br />
year. This, in my opinion, has everything to be<br />
said for it—very little to be said against it. It<br />
would be inexpensive ; its contents would be fresh;<br />
if it failed of support (though indeed it might well<br />
be given away to “ authors”), well, then, the experi-<br />
ment would not be repeated, and very little would<br />
have been lost. Also, the yearly parts could be<br />
bound, if desired. Not only do I see no objection to<br />
the publication of such a pamphlet, which would<br />
carefully condense, under clear titles of the actual<br />
questions at issue, the cases decided during the<br />
year, with the Society’s comments upon them, but<br />
T believe such a pamphlet would be of immense<br />
assistance to all engaged in literary or artistic<br />
work ; would enhance the value, by assisting the<br />
objects of the Society; and would, lastly, by keep-<br />
ing the subject of copyright continually before<br />
our eyes and the eyes of the public, tend to become<br />
a weighty factor in our getting at last that for<br />
which we all look so anxiously—a reform of our<br />
copyright law.<br />
<br />
CHARLES WEEKES.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
212<br />
<br />
MUSICAL COPYRIGHT.<br />
<br />
——<br />
<br />
R. SOUSA, in a letter to Zhe Times, is<br />
justly indignant at the unauthorised sales<br />
of copyright musical pieces which daily<br />
<br />
occur in the streets of London and other large<br />
towns, and we are thoroughly in accord with him<br />
so far as his indignation is levelled against<br />
the present legislation that exists in England.<br />
M. Messager, the author of “ Veronique” has also<br />
made a complaint on the same lines in the same<br />
paper.<br />
<br />
The question of musical copyright and the laws<br />
dealing with the subject have been so fully dis-<br />
cussed in Zhe Author that there is no need to<br />
repeat the points on which the present Acts are<br />
inadequate; but whatever righteous indignation<br />
Mr. Sousa may show he is clearly at fault when he<br />
comes to discuss the question of the Bern Con-<br />
vention and the United States Declaration. He<br />
suggests that Great Britain does not fulfil the<br />
terms of her Agreement as far as foreigners are<br />
concerned.<br />
<br />
It is a pity that the article which appeared in<br />
the Law Journal dealing with the same subject<br />
was not printed in Zhe Times also, in order that<br />
the fallacy of Mr. Sousa’s arguments might be<br />
made evident. Inthe Law Journal it is clearly<br />
pointed out that under the Bern Convention the<br />
rights granted to foreigners are the same rights as<br />
are granted to natives, and there is no doubt what-<br />
ever that inadequate as these rights are, the<br />
foreigners obtain exactly the same protection as<br />
English composers. ‘he complaints that have<br />
been raised by the two gentlemen named have been<br />
raised with an equally loud cry on former occasions<br />
by all musical composers natives of this country.<br />
This is so far as the Bern Convention is concerned,<br />
but Mr. Sousa refers to the Agreement between the<br />
United States upon terms of International Copy-<br />
right with the countries comprising the Bern<br />
Convention, including Great Britain. Every one<br />
who has studied the question of copyright knows<br />
that there is no formal agreement.<br />
<br />
United States rights are granted by a Declara-<br />
tion of the President to citizens of a country that<br />
“permits to citizens of the United States the<br />
benefit of copyright on substantially the same<br />
basis as its own citizens.” The Proclamation of<br />
the United States President has declared England<br />
to be such a country. When, however, Mr. Sousa<br />
goes further and talks of reciprocity as existing<br />
between England and the United States, he rather<br />
oversteps the mark.<br />
<br />
After the letters that have appeared in The<br />
<br />
Standard there is no need to raise the point<br />
again.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
While, however, it is clear that Mr. Sousa’s<br />
impression—that England is treating foreigners<br />
unfairly—is unfounded, we do not in any way desire<br />
to commend the present Copyright Acts as they<br />
exist. Let Mr. Sousa cancel the declaration of his<br />
President and his last state would be worse than<br />
the present.<br />
<br />
The Society has for many years been endeayvour-<br />
ing to bring about alterations, and has, on one or<br />
two occasions, obtained a certain limit of success.<br />
It is hoped that the time is not far distant when<br />
not only the British author, the British artist,<br />
the British dramatist, and the British musical com-<br />
poser will have no complaint, but that the foreigner<br />
also, who obtains advantage of our existing laws,<br />
will find them adequate.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
<br />
THE PRODUCT OF THE INTELLECT.<br />
<br />
—1+~> +<br />
<br />
BRIEF account of the origin of this most<br />
valuable work will form the best introduc-<br />
tion to our notice of it.<br />
<br />
Messrs. Podesta and Scotti had acquired from the<br />
authors, A. Aroztegui and F. Pizano, two plays,<br />
“ Julian Giménez” and “Nobleza Criolla.” A<br />
certain Don Luis Anselmi thereafter produced two<br />
plays entitled, “ Julian Giménoz,” and “ Nobleza<br />
de un Criollo.” Podesta and Scotti brought an<br />
action against him for infringement of copyright,<br />
and alleged that the titles were but specimens of<br />
the species of piracy that existed in every part of<br />
Anselmi’s plays, in which the works had been<br />
very slightly altered, though in a manner by which<br />
they had been ridiculously marred. Anselmi as-<br />
serted that the works were not his, but from the<br />
pen of a “young man,” Juan J. Garay—who was<br />
not forthcoming. He also declined to submit the<br />
text of these two plays to the court. He had pre-<br />
viously refused the payment of the 10 per cent.<br />
royalties on the gross receipts, which Messrs.<br />
<br />
Podesté and Scotti had claimed ; declaring them- —<br />
<br />
selves contented to accept this customary Spanish<br />
dramatic author’s royalty without making further<br />
claims for compensation.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The cause was tried, in the first instance, before on<br />
<br />
Dr. Ernesto Quesada, who gave sentence for the<br />
plaintiffs, with costs. Subsequently, this sentence<br />
was quashed, on technical grounds, by a superior<br />
court, but an appeal allowed. Pending this appeal<br />
<br />
Dr. Ernesto Quesada has published his judgment =<br />
—which forms the first and most important part .<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Dr. Ernesto Quesada.<br />
<br />
pp. xvi., 496.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“La Propriedad Intellectual en :<br />
el derecho Argentino.” Buenos Aires. J, Menedez, 8<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
of the work—together with a mass of documents<br />
in support of the sentence.<br />
<br />
The learned judge has had the courtesy to send<br />
us a copy of his book, and we have no hesitation<br />
in saying that no more luminous, valuable, or sug-<br />
gestive work on literary piracy has ever been laid<br />
before us. That the judge’s sentence is lucid and<br />
masterly is but a small part of its merit. With an<br />
intellectual insight, too often conspicuous by its<br />
absence in legal declarations, Dr. Quesada unfolds<br />
widely elemental views of the essential nature of<br />
property, and of the logical essence of proprietor-<br />
ship and of its rights in the case of intellectual<br />
productions. His theses are such that we shall not<br />
be surprised if his work becomes, among Southern<br />
American jurists, the classical authority on copy-<br />
right and piracy.<br />
<br />
The valuable nature of his conclusions will be<br />
more fully appreciated when it is mentioned that<br />
the Argentine Republic has no statute law ruling<br />
copyright. Nothing daunted by this, Dr. Quesada<br />
lays down the doctrine that literary property is<br />
implied by Article 17 of the Constitution—that in<br />
the application of the civil law to civil delinquen-<br />
cies affecting copyright, the dispositions of the<br />
Constitution must be interpreted in an extensive,<br />
and not ina restrictive sense—and that the absence<br />
of statute must not be interpreted to mean that no<br />
rights exist, because their existence is involved in<br />
the terms of the Constitution, whose articles<br />
cannot be set aside. He further appeals to the<br />
Convention of Montevideo, to which the Argentine<br />
Republic is a signatory, with the consequence that<br />
its provisions now have legal force in the Republic.<br />
And he then continues :<br />
<br />
“Liberty of intellectual theft has two conse-<br />
quences. It propagates, generally, by means of<br />
detestable translations, an unwholesome literature<br />
of an inferior character, not alone perfectly inade-<br />
quate to raise the national intelligence, but inade-<br />
quate even to maintain it at its present level. And<br />
it prevents national productions in the way of arts<br />
and letters from meeting with support and oppor-<br />
tunities of development ; because they are crushed<br />
in the competition with the foreign matter of the<br />
kind above mentioned.”<br />
<br />
Equally deserving of attention is another passage,<br />
for which the Argentine Society of Authors tendered<br />
their special thanks to Dr. Quesada, acknow-<br />
ledging the service that he had done the cause of<br />
‘literature.<br />
<br />
“When a man has passed sleepless nights in con-<br />
ceiving and shaping a piece for the theatre, and has<br />
brought his work to a successful result, it is an<br />
indefensible action for some scribbler to snatch the<br />
fruits of his labour in some underhand way, by<br />
<br />
‘Inaking pro pane lucrando a travesty of his work in<br />
<br />
which it is barely disguised. It is impossible to<br />
<br />
218<br />
<br />
leave actions of this kind unpunished ; it is indis-<br />
pensable that the law should strike with implacable<br />
rigour all persons guilty of similar proceedings,<br />
placing them in the same category as highwaymen<br />
who rob the traveller of his money and laugh at<br />
his expostulations, under the impression that no<br />
power exists which can punish them.”<br />
<br />
Whilst expressing our admiration for the insight<br />
that abounds in Dr. Quesada’s judgment, we should<br />
be doing his work an injustice did we not add that<br />
the appendix contains a mass of matter whose<br />
interest is second only to the actual sentence which<br />
it is adduced to support. Here we find various<br />
appreciations of Dr. Quesada’s judgment, expressed<br />
in influential quarters ; and then under the head<br />
of “General Bibliography,” a vast and carefully<br />
digested mass of documents that cover the whole of<br />
the law of the Republic, bearing in any way upon<br />
the subject under dispute, together with’a collection<br />
of cases of a similar character.<br />
<br />
In a word this is an addition to the literature of<br />
copyright of primary importance ; and one that will<br />
be found equally valuable to the legist, and to the<br />
student of the wider questions which are involved<br />
in the conception of intellectual property.<br />
<br />
—_———_—__>—__—_.<br />
<br />
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.*<br />
<br />
—+<br />
<br />
VERYONE who is interested in international<br />
publication and copyright—whether his<br />
point of view is commercial, literary, or<br />
<br />
social—naturally often feels the need of some<br />
handy volume which will furnish him with the<br />
main facts of the home, colonial, and international<br />
enactments of the various countries which have<br />
legislated on copyright. Professor Réthlisberger,<br />
of Bern, in his littie manual above named, of<br />
which the second edition is lying before us, has<br />
compiled exactly the sort of work which was<br />
wanted to meet these requirements. Here are set<br />
forth all the principal enactments of the various<br />
legislations, thus gathered into a repertoire that<br />
amply furnishes all the information that will be in<br />
any ordinary circumstances required, and indeed<br />
in most cases sufficient to spare the enquirer the<br />
trouble of consulting any more extensive work,<br />
Anyone with Professor Réthlisberger’s book in his<br />
hands will have need to turn to official documents<br />
and lengthy legal treatises only where troublesome<br />
minutize are involved, or when a necessity arises<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* Ernst Rothlisberger. ‘ Gesetze iiber das Urheberrecht<br />
in allen Liindern nebst den darauf beziiglichen Inter-<br />
nationalen Vertrigen und die Bestimmungen tiber das<br />
Verlagsrecht.” Zweite Auflage, Leipzig. G, Hedeler, 8°.<br />
<br />
<br />
914<br />
<br />
for bringing matters under the jurisdiction of the<br />
courts.<br />
<br />
In the earlier part of the work the legal enact-<br />
ments of the various countries of the world are<br />
arranged under the name of the States placed in<br />
alphabetical order. After this follow various<br />
international conventions; _ first, that of Bern,<br />
and then that of Montevideo, each one of which<br />
comprises a considerable number of different States,<br />
and then the particular conventions between<br />
various pairs of countries. Thus the British<br />
author can at a glance learn from the book with<br />
which States Great Britain is treaty bound, what<br />
are the exact terms on which copyright can be<br />
secured in the United States, and that the only<br />
other direct convention affecting Great Britain is<br />
the particular convention (1893) with Austria-<br />
Hungary. Indirect obligations which might arise<br />
between different countries will be also seen to bea<br />
more complicated matter. Thus England is by<br />
the Bern Convention bound up with Italy. Italy<br />
has conventions with Mexico, Montenegro, and<br />
Paraguay. A delicate problem might in conse-<br />
quence arise respecting the status in these<br />
dominions of an Italian translation of an English<br />
work. Great Britain is bound by no copyright<br />
treaty with the Union of Montevideo. But France,<br />
to which Great Britain is bound by the Bern Con-<br />
vention, has given her adhesion to the South<br />
American Union of Montevideo. How would that<br />
affect English translations of French works, made<br />
in London, if introduced into the States signatory<br />
to the Montevideo Convention ? Professor Roth-<br />
lisberger’s little work can, of course, only reveal<br />
the possibilities of these complications. In reality,<br />
no satisfactory solution of them will be found until<br />
the whole world is united in one uniform and all-<br />
embracing agreement.<br />
<br />
The various statutes of different countries,<br />
with their extraordinarily different provisions,<br />
present interesting phenomena—often revealing<br />
characteristic features. The Turkish Empire<br />
allows an author the imposing privilege of a copy-<br />
right (transferable to his heirs and assigns), which<br />
lasts four years—if the work is of large size. It<br />
must contain not less than 800 pages, nor less<br />
than thirty-five lines on a page. Great Britain<br />
alone enjoys a complicated method of calculating<br />
the duration of copyright, based upon alternatives,<br />
and capable of vying in inconvenience with her<br />
“weights and measures.” France, Germany, and<br />
Spain are by far more liberal in the protection<br />
accorded intellectual work ; Spain the most liberal<br />
of all. And Guatemala sets the whole world an<br />
example of equity in her enactment, “ The right of<br />
literary property is not time-bound : on the death<br />
of the author it passes to his heirs.” It is sad to<br />
- effect that more prominent States have not yet<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
discovered that the labour of a man’s brain is<br />
entitled at least to rank as high as the labour of his<br />
hands. But the work abounds with instances of<br />
that peculiar pusillanimity or superstition of the<br />
legal mind which seems to be incapable of looking<br />
beyond what has once been set down in a statute.<br />
<br />
Should Professor Réthlisberger’s work reach a<br />
third edition, which we sincerely hope that it may,<br />
we would suggest that its value would be enhanced<br />
by the mention of leading works in which further<br />
information can be found if desired. A complete<br />
legal bibliography would be equally out of place<br />
and impossible in a manual. But we think that<br />
under the heading of each state, a brief reference:<br />
to one or two authorities, such as is to be found at<br />
at the conclusion of the articles of a high-class<br />
encyclopedia, would, without adding much to the<br />
length of the book, render its usefulness still more<br />
universal.<br />
<br />
oo<br />
<br />
THE DICTIONARY OF MUSIC AND<br />
MUSICIANS.*<br />
<br />
—<br />
<br />
T is twenty-six years since the first monthly<br />
instalment of Sir George Grove’s “ Dictionary<br />
of Music and Musicians” appeared, and the<br />
<br />
fact that it came out in monthly parts caused<br />
many more musicians and amateurs to buy it than<br />
would otherwise have been the case. By issuing<br />
the revised edition of that remarkable work im<br />
volume form only, we fear Messrs. Macmillan will<br />
appeal to a smaller public of purchasers than did<br />
Sir George. This is to be regretted, because as &<br />
work of reference the new edition, judging by the<br />
first volume just published, is a great improvement<br />
on its predecessor. Without tampering with the<br />
<br />
masterly notices of Beethoven and other great<br />
composers of the original issue, glaring omissions, —<br />
such as the biography of Bononcini, Handel's —<br />
rival, have been corrected. The present edition oe<br />
contains a most interesting article on acoustics —<br />
which should never have been omitted from the |<br />
first issues ; and Bach, Berlioz, Brahms, and Chopin, —<br />
inadequately treated in the first edition, are noW —<br />
as is their due, dealt with at greater length. |<br />
The editor in his preface states that the average<br />
country organist will not find his name in the new<br />
edition more than in the old. Every editor of @<br />
book of this kind is bound to meet with com-—<br />
plaints of omission and of inadequate treatment.<br />
But, if the remaining volumes are edited with the<br />
care and diligence of the first, even the most —<br />
captious critic ought to be satisfied. No one —<br />
really interested in music should be without such<br />
a<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* “Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” edited — :<br />
by Fuller Maitland. Macmillan & Co. :<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Foe<br />
RS<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
awork of reference. But what is of special interest<br />
to members of the Society—both musical com-<br />
posers and authors—is the article dealing with<br />
musical copyright. Six columns have been devoted<br />
to this subject, and the difficulties surrounding<br />
musical publication are clearly explained.<br />
<br />
The rights of the composer are more complicated<br />
than the rights of the author, owing to the fact<br />
that he holds the performing right as well as the<br />
right of publication ; and more complicated than<br />
the rights of the dramatist, for, although the<br />
dramatist owns both the right of publication and<br />
the right of performance, the former is not very<br />
often used, and the latter is more easily dealt with<br />
owing to the fact that there are fewer people who<br />
are able to conduct a dramatic performance than<br />
there are able to play a piece of music on a piano<br />
or some other instrument. These two rights—the<br />
copyright, that is, the right of duplicating copies<br />
and the performing right—are clearly and definitely<br />
separated. In order to obtain copyright in music<br />
it is essential that it must be original, but the<br />
courts have interpreted the word “ original” in a<br />
wide sense. As in the infringement of literary<br />
copyright everything must depend upon the<br />
particular facts of each case, so here to quote<br />
all the leading cases in order to convey a fair idea<br />
of the decisions would have been impossible, the<br />
necessary explanation is therefore somewhat cur-<br />
tailed. The author of the article maintains that<br />
publication before performance does not deprive<br />
the composer or his assigns of the performing<br />
right. We agree with him in adopting this view<br />
of the case, and think this is the proper interpre-<br />
tation of the law, but some writers on the subject<br />
have doubted this.<br />
<br />
Although the book is dated 1904, it is difficult<br />
to know the exact dates on which the different<br />
articles went to press. In referring to inter-<br />
national copyright, no mention is made of<br />
Denmark and Sweden’s adhesion to the Bern<br />
Convention. The omission of Sweden is, perhaps,<br />
excusable, as it only joined in August, 1904, but<br />
Denmark should certainly have been included<br />
among the countries named.<br />
<br />
The author refers to the decision in the courts<br />
which declared that the manufacture and sale of<br />
instruments for the mechanical reproduction of<br />
copyright airs is not a breach of musical copyright.<br />
This decision is clearly correct. ‘The infringement<br />
was, without doubt, an infringement of the per-<br />
forming right, and if musicians and composers<br />
took the same care of preserving their performing<br />
rights that dramatists do, they could, no doubt,<br />
make a considerable income, but many are very<br />
indifferent in this matter, and freely assign to the<br />
publisher what they ought to retain themselves, and<br />
the publisher, more intent on the reproduction<br />
<br />
215<br />
<br />
of the copyright than on the preservation of the<br />
performing rights, takes little interest in the issue.<br />
<br />
There is one advantage that musical composers<br />
obtain with regard to reproduction in the United<br />
States, namely, the fact that the copies to be sent<br />
to the Library of Congress in accordance with the<br />
United States Act, need not be printed in the<br />
United States. This must have been an uninten-<br />
tional omission on the part of the Government of<br />
that country, as it has clung so tenaciously ever<br />
since the Act was passed to what it erroneously<br />
considers to be the protection of the printing<br />
trade.<br />
<br />
The second part of the article refers to the<br />
infringement of musical rights. The infringe-<br />
ment of copyright follows the same lines as the<br />
infringement of literary copyright, but the infringe-<br />
ment of performing right, owing to the facts<br />
which we have already mentioned, has especial<br />
legislation. For the benefit of the public anyone<br />
is entitled to perform a piece unless a notice<br />
specially reserving the right is printed on every<br />
copy published. ‘he statutes necessary to carry<br />
out this regulation are fully explained.<br />
<br />
Finally, the article deals with the Musical<br />
Summary Proceedings Act, 1902, and explains<br />
how those desirous of acting under that inadequate<br />
statute should carry out their intention.<br />
<br />
G. HT,<br />
ee<br />
SENOR MANUEL GARCIA, C.V.O.<br />
<br />
T is appropriate that the Centenary of Sefor<br />
Manuel Garcia should have occurred in 1905<br />
at the time of the celebration of the Ter-<br />
<br />
centenary of Cervantes, “ Don Quixote,” and when<br />
Spain is congratulating herself that her veteran<br />
dramatist, Echegaray, shares with the Provengal<br />
poet, Mistral, the last Nobel prize for literature,<br />
<br />
So much has the success of Sefior Garcia as a<br />
teacher of singing been drawn attention to by the<br />
press, that it is fitting to note, in these columns,<br />
that the maestro, who has been a member of the<br />
Society of Authors for some years, owes not a<br />
little of his distinction to the power of the pen.<br />
<br />
It was his treatise entitled “Mémoire sur la<br />
Voix Humaine” (afterwards given in London<br />
as ‘“¢ Physiological Observations on the Human<br />
Voice’) presented to the French Institut in<br />
1840, which brought him the formal congratu-<br />
lations of the Académie, and was the foundation<br />
of most of the later investigations into the vocal<br />
organ.<br />
<br />
His international reputation, as the most famous<br />
teacher of song of our own time and the generation<br />
preceding our own, was, moreover, considerably<br />
enhanced by the publication of his “ Traité complet<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
914<br />
<br />
for bringing matters under the jurisdiction of the<br />
courts.<br />
<br />
In the earlier part of the work the legal enact-<br />
ments of the various countries of the world are<br />
arranged under the name of the States placed in<br />
alphabetical order. After this follow various<br />
international conventions; first, that of Bern,<br />
and then that of Montevideo, each one of which<br />
comprises a considerable number of different States,<br />
and then the particular conventions between<br />
various pairs of countries. Thus the British<br />
author can at a glance learn from the book with<br />
which States Great Britain is treaty bound, what<br />
are the exact terms on which copyright can be<br />
secured in the United States, and that the only<br />
other direct convention affecting Great Britain is<br />
the particular convention (1883) with Austria-<br />
Hungary. Indirect obligations which might arise<br />
between different countries will be also seen to bea<br />
more complicated matter. Thus England is by<br />
the Bern Convention bound up with Italy. Italy<br />
has conventions with Mexico, Montenegro, and<br />
Paraguay. A delicate problem might in conse-<br />
quence arise respecting the status in these<br />
dominions of an Italian translation of an English<br />
work. Great Britain is bound by no copyright<br />
treaty with the Union of Montevideo. But France,<br />
to which Great Britain is bound by the Bern Con-<br />
vention, has given her adhesion to the South<br />
American Union of Montevideo. How would that<br />
affect English translations of French works, made<br />
in London, if introduced into the States signatory<br />
to the Montevideo Convention ? Professor Réth-<br />
lisberger’s little work can, of course, only reveal<br />
the possibilities of these complications. In reality,<br />
no satisfactory solution of them will be found until<br />
the whole world is united in one uniform and all-<br />
embracing agreement.<br />
<br />
The various statutes of different countries,<br />
with their extraordinarily different provisions,<br />
present interesting phenomena—often revealing<br />
characteristic features. The Turkish Empire<br />
allows an author the imposing privilege of a copy-<br />
right (transferable to his heirs and assigns), which<br />
lasts four years—if the work is of large size. It<br />
must contain not less than 800 pages, nor less<br />
than thirty-five lines on a page. Great Britain<br />
alone enjoys a complicated method of calculating<br />
the duration of copyright, based upon alternatives,<br />
and capable of vying in inconvenience with her<br />
“weights and measures.” France, Germany, and<br />
Spain are by far more liberal in the protection<br />
accorded intellectual work ; Spain the most liberal<br />
of all. And Guatemala sets the whole world an<br />
example of equity in her enactment, “ The right of<br />
literary property is not time-bound : on the death<br />
of the author it passes to his heirs.” It is sad to<br />
- eflect that more prominent States have not yet<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
discovered that the labour of a man’s brain ig:<br />
entitled at least to rank as high as the labour of his<br />
hands. But the work abounds with instances of<br />
that peculiar pusillanimity or superstition of the<br />
legal mind which seems to be incapable of looking<br />
beyond what has once been set down in a statute,<br />
<br />
Should Professor Réthlisberger’s work reach a<br />
third edition, which we sincerely hope that it may,<br />
we would suggest that its value would be enhanced<br />
by the mention of leading works in which further<br />
information can be found if desired. A complete<br />
legal bibliography would be equally out of place<br />
and impossible in a manual. But we think that<br />
under the heading of each state, a brief reference:<br />
to one or two authorities, such as is to be found at<br />
at the conclusion of the articles of a high-class.<br />
encyclopedia, would, without adding much to the<br />
length of the book, render its usefulness still more<br />
<br />
universal.<br />
————_—_ + ——_-—__—__—<br />
<br />
THE DICTIONARY OF MUSIC AND<br />
MUSICIANS.*<br />
<br />
+<br />
<br />
T is twenty-six years since the first monthly<br />
instalment of Sir George Grove’s “ Dictionary<br />
of Music and Musicians” appeared, and the<br />
<br />
fact that it came out in monthly parts caused<br />
many more musicians and amateurs to buy it tham<br />
would otherwise have been the case. By issuing<br />
the revised edition of that remarkable work im<br />
volume form only, we fear Messrs. Macmillan will<br />
appeal to a smaller public of purchasers than did<br />
Sir George. This is to be regretted, because as &<br />
work of reference the new edition, judging by the<br />
first volume just published, is a great improvement<br />
on its predecessor. Without tampering with the<br />
masterly notices of Beethoven and other great<br />
composers of the original issue, glaring omissions,<br />
such as the biography of Bononcini, Handel’s<br />
rival, have been corrected. The present edition<br />
contains a most interesting article on acoustics<br />
which should never have been omitted from the<br />
first issues ; and Bach, Berlioz, Brahms, and Chopin,<br />
inadequately treated in the first edition, are now<br />
as is their due, dealt with at greater length. -<br />
<br />
The editor in his preface states that the average<br />
country organist will not find his name in the new<br />
edition more than in the old. Every editor of @<br />
book of this kind is bound to meet with com-<br />
plaints of omission and of inadequate treatment.<br />
But, if the remaining volumes are edited with the<br />
care and diligence of the first, even the most<br />
captious critic ought to be satisfied. No one<br />
really interested in music should be without such<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* “@rove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” edited<br />
by Fuller Maitland, Macmillan & Co.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
iy<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
a work ofreference. But what is of special interest<br />
to members of the Society—both musical com-<br />
posers and authors—is the article dealing with<br />
musical copyright. Six columns have been devoted<br />
to this subject, and the difficulties surrounding<br />
musical publication are clearly explained.<br />
<br />
The rights of the composer are more complicated<br />
than the rights of the author, owing to the fact<br />
that he holds the performing right as well as the<br />
right of publication ; and more complicated than<br />
the rights of the dramatist, for, although the<br />
dramatist owns both the right of publication and<br />
the right of performance, the former is not very<br />
often used, and the latter is more easily dealt with<br />
owing to the fact that there are fewer people who<br />
are able to conduct a dramatic performance than<br />
there are able to play a piece of music on a piano<br />
or some other instrument. These two rights—the<br />
copyright, that is, the right of duplicating copies<br />
and the performing right—are ciearly and definitely<br />
separated. In order to obtain copyright in music<br />
it is essential that it must be original, but the<br />
courts have interpreted the word “ original” in a<br />
wide sense. As in the infringement of literary<br />
copyright everything must depend upon the<br />
particular facts of each case, so here to quote<br />
all the leading cases in order to convey a fair idea<br />
of the decisions would have been impossible, the<br />
necessary explanation is therefore somewhat cur-<br />
tailed. The author of the article maintains that<br />
publication before performance does not deprive<br />
the composer or his assigns of the performing<br />
right. We agree with him in adopting this view<br />
of the case, and think this is the proper interpre-<br />
tation of the law, but some writers on the subject<br />
have doubted this.<br />
<br />
Although the book is dated 1904, it is difficult<br />
to know the exact dates on which the different<br />
articles went to press. In referring to inter-<br />
national copyright, no mention is made of<br />
Denmark and Sweden’s adhesion to the Bern<br />
Convention. The omission of Sweden is, perhaps,<br />
excusable, as it only joined in August, 1904, but<br />
Denmark should certainly have been included<br />
among the countries named.<br />
<br />
The author refers to the decision in the courts<br />
which declared that the manufacture and sale of<br />
instruments for the mechanical reproduction of<br />
copyright airs is not a breach of musical copyright.<br />
This decision is clearly correct. The infringement<br />
was, without doubt, an infringement of the per-<br />
forming right, and if musicians and composers<br />
took the same care of preserving their performing<br />
rights that dramatists do, they could, no doubt,<br />
make a considerable income, but many are very<br />
indifferent in this matter, and freely assign to the<br />
publisher what they ought to retain themselves, and<br />
the publisher, more intent on the reproduction<br />
<br />
215<br />
<br />
of the copyright than on the preservation of the<br />
performing rights, takes little interest in the issue.<br />
<br />
There is one advantage that musical composers<br />
obtain with regard to reproduction in the United<br />
States, namely, the fact that the copies to be sent<br />
to the Library of Congress in accordance with the<br />
United States Act, need not be printed in the<br />
United States. This must have been an uninten-<br />
tional omission on the part of the Government of<br />
that country, as it has clung so tenaciously ever<br />
since the Act was passed to what it erroneously<br />
considers to be the protection of the printing<br />
trade.<br />
<br />
The second part of the article refers to the<br />
infringement of musical rights. The infringe-<br />
ment of copyright follows the same lines as the<br />
infringement of literary copyright, but the infringe-<br />
ment of performing right, owing to the facts<br />
which we have already mentioned, has especial<br />
legislation. For the benefit of the public anyone<br />
is entitled to perform a piece unless a_ notice<br />
specially reserving the right is printed on every<br />
copy published. ‘he statutes necessary to carry<br />
out this regulation are fully explained.<br />
<br />
Finally, the article deals with the Musical<br />
Summary Proceedings Act, 1902, and explains<br />
how those desirous of acting under that inadequate<br />
statute should carry out their intention.<br />
<br />
G. der.<br />
<br />
a eee ae<br />
<br />
SENOR MANUEL GARCIA, C.Y.O.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
T is appropriate that the Centenary of Senor<br />
Manuel Garcia should have occurred in 1905<br />
at the time of the celebration of the Ter-<br />
<br />
centenary of Cervantes, “‘ Don Quixote,’ and when<br />
Spain is congratulating herself that her veteran<br />
dramatist, Echegaray, shares with the Proyengal<br />
poet, Mistral, the last Nobel prize for literature.<br />
<br />
So much has the success of Sefior Garcia as a<br />
teacher of singing been drawn attention to by the<br />
press, that it is fitting to note, in these columns,<br />
that the maestro, who has been a member of the<br />
Society of Authors for some years, owes not a<br />
little of his distinction to the power of the pen.<br />
<br />
It was his treatise entitled ‘‘Mémoire sur la<br />
Voix Humaine” (afterwards given in London<br />
as ‘ Physiological Observations on the Human<br />
Voice’’) presented to the French Institut in<br />
1840, which brought him the formal congratu-<br />
lations of the Académie, and was the foundation<br />
of most of the later investigations into the vocal<br />
organ.<br />
<br />
His international reputation, as the most famous<br />
teacher of song of our own time and the generation<br />
preceding our own, was, moreover, considerably<br />
enhanced by the publication of his ‘ Traite complet<br />
<br />
<br />
216<br />
<br />
de PArt du Chant,” which was translated into<br />
English and nearly every other European language.<br />
<br />
It is easy to understand why, if a giant of<br />
physique—such as the Russian exhibited daily at<br />
one of the London music halls—is attractive to the<br />
multitude, a giant of longevity, of the intellectual<br />
distinction of Manuel Garcia, should be so exceed-<br />
ingly interesting. That the sovereigns of Spain,<br />
England, and Germany have bestowed honours on<br />
him when giving their congratulations was to be<br />
expected.<br />
<br />
To Englishmen of the present day it seems<br />
incredible that we have, living amongst us, in<br />
good mental and physical health, a naturalised<br />
compatriot, who was born in the year of Trafalgar,<br />
when Pitt and Fox were living and George Ill.<br />
was King. Garcia was ten years of age when<br />
Waterloo was fought, fourteen when Queen Victoria<br />
was born, nineteen when Byron and twenty-seven<br />
when Scott died. Consequently, when he feels<br />
inclined, he can talk about Keats, Shelley, Charles<br />
Lamb, Tom Hood, Edgar Allan Poe, Wordsworth,<br />
Sam Rogers, de Quincey, Thackeray, Dickens, and<br />
other of his long since departed contemporaries, as<br />
if they lived but yesterday.<br />
<br />
To the musician of to-day, who shakes the hand<br />
of the illustrious maestro, that hand appears to<br />
be a connecting link that is even more wonderful,<br />
for Manuel Garcia was born at Zafra (not<br />
Madrid, as stated by Grove) in the year when<br />
Beethoven’s only opera, “ Fidelio,” and the great<br />
“‘ Eroica” symphony were first produced at Vienna.<br />
Haydn was then living. Garcia came into the<br />
world before either Balfe or Wallace, who seem, to<br />
the musician of to-day, to have lived in almost<br />
antediluvian times. Think of it! He was senior to<br />
Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Thalberg,<br />
and that other great teacher of singing, Lamperti,<br />
who lived to a good old age, but went over to the<br />
majority thirteen years since.<br />
<br />
When Verdi and Wagner were born, Garcia was<br />
already eight years old. He was eleven when<br />
Sir William Sterndale Bennett came into the<br />
world. Consequently, he was a good deal older<br />
than Gounod, and was already fifteen when his<br />
most famous pupil, Jenny Lind, drew her first<br />
breath. She died eighteen years ago at the age<br />
of sixty-seven. Then, Garcia was seventeen when<br />
Sims Reeves was born.<br />
<br />
When one thinks of the interesting volumes of<br />
reminiscences which have been given to the world<br />
by comparatively minor musicians, the hope is that<br />
this famous centenarian, whilst his memory is still<br />
active, will not omit to record his impressions of<br />
and correspondence with the great ones of the<br />
artistic world whom he has met. The distinguished<br />
son ought to have much interesting matter to tell<br />
the world concerning that extraordinary singer,<br />
<br />
THER AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
his father, Emmanuel Garcia, who was born in<br />
1775. To the veteran whom King Edward has<br />
recently honoured, his father’s recollections of<br />
Mozart, Haydn, Cherubini, Paganini, Auber, and<br />
the great singers of the eighteenth century, must<br />
be familiar. And, if the centenarian himself is<br />
now disinclined to undertake the labour of writing<br />
an autobiography, his grandson, who is well<br />
known as a singer, would doubtless readily act<br />
as amanuensis,<br />
ALGERNON Ross.<br />
<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
<br />
——>— + —<br />
<br />
PUBLISHERS’ DELAYS.<br />
<br />
Sir,—I think it will help to interest your<br />
readers, and to emphasise the importance of what<br />
you are always urging, if I mention three “ tricks”<br />
which have just been played on me :—<br />
<br />
1. After a promise to publish immediately, and<br />
urgent letters requesting the MS. at once, a pub-<br />
lisher delays the publication for many months.<br />
Nowadays a book runs the risk of being not the<br />
best expression of the author's views if it is delayed<br />
even three months.<br />
<br />
2. Owing to the author’s usual six presentation<br />
copies being taken for granted, the publisher<br />
refuses to supply them.<br />
<br />
3. “Advance on royalties,” assumed by the<br />
author to have its usual sense of advance on receipt<br />
of MS., or on passing of proofs, or on publication,<br />
is interpreted as meaning “ (?) advance when books<br />
are made up ”—which is nearly a year, in this case,<br />
after receipt of MS., and nearly six months after<br />
publication.<br />
<br />
Moral.—Never tolerate a general agreement.<br />
Insist that every detail, however commonplace<br />
and obvious, shall be down in black and white.<br />
Do not lead the publishers into temptation.<br />
<br />
E. M.<br />
<br />
Wis’ “ CHARLES THE First.”<br />
<br />
Sir,—Sir Henry Irving must have forgotten that<br />
“ Qharles the First” was published (by Blackwood, I<br />
think,) when it was first produced at the Lyceum,<br />
I had a copy but have mislaid it. It is Wills<br />
<br />
“ Olivia ” I am hoping some day to see in print.<br />
8. M. Fox. | https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/504/1905-04-01-The-Author-15-7.pdf | publications, The Author |