Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860

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The necessity of some kind of equitable arrangement was so strongly
felt by American publishers that a kind of unwritten law gradually
established itself among them. It was tacitly understood, that, when
a publisher had paid an English author for advance sheets, no rival
American edition should be published. But it already appears too
plainly that an arrangement with no guaranty but a private sense of
honor is liable to constant infringement for the gratification of
personal enmity, or in the hope of immediate profit. The rewards of
uprightness and honorable dealing are slow in coming, while those of
unscrupulous greed are immediate, even though dirty. Under existing
circumstances, free-trade and fair-play exist only in appearance: for
the extraordinary claim has been set up, that an American bookseller
has an exclusive right to all the future works of an English author
any one of whose former productions he has reprinted, whether with or
without paying for it; so that, however willing another publisher may
be to give the author a fair price for his book, or however desirous
the latter may be to conclude such a bargain, it is practically
impossible, so long as privateering is tolerated in the trade.

We have said nothing of the advantages which would accrue to our own
authors from a definite settlement of the question of international
copyright between England and America. How great these would be is
plain from the fact that the editions of American books republished
in England are already numbered by thousands. With the growth of the
English Colonies the value to an American author of an English
copyright is daily increasing. Indeed, it is a matter of
consideration for our publishers, whether Canada may not before long
retaliate upon them, and by cheaper reprints become as troublesome to
them as Belgium once was to France.

It is not creditable that America should be the last of civilized
nations to acknowledge the justice of an author's claim to a share in
the profits of a commercial value which he has absolutely created.
England is more liberal to our authors than we to hers, but it is
only under certain strictly limited contingencies that an American
can acquire copyright there. Were all our booksellers as scrupulous
as the few honorably exceptional ones among them now are, there would
be no need of legislative regulation; but, in the present condition
of things, he who undertakes to reprint an English book which he has
honestly paid for is at the mercy of whoever can get credit for poor
paper and worse printing. There is no reason why a distinction should
be made between copy-right and patent-right; but, if our legislators
refuse to admit any abstract right in the matter, they might at least
go so far as to conclude an international arrangement by which a
publisher in either country who was willing to pay for the right of
publication should be protected in its exercise. No just objection
could be made to a plan of this kind, which, if not so honest as a
general international law of copyright, would be profitable to our
publishers, and to such of our authors at least as had acquired any
foreign reputation.

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The Church of the First Three Centuries; or, Notices of the Lives and
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Plato's Apology and Crito; with Notes, by W.S. Tyler, Graves
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Poems. By William H. Holcombe, M.D. New York. Mason Brothers. 12mo.
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Science in Theology. Sermons preached in St. Mary's, Oxford, before
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Remembered Words from the Sermons of Rev. I. Nichols, late Pastor of
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The Throne of David; from the Consecration of the Shepherd of
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of the Splendor, Power, and Dominion of the Reign of the Shepherd,
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Series of Letters addressed by an Assyrian Ambassador, Resident at
the Court of Saul and David, to his Lord and King on the Throne of
Nineveh; wherein the Glory of Assyria, as well as the Magnificence of
Judea, is presented to the Reader as by an Eye-witness. By the Rev.
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The Boy-Inventor; a Memoir of Matthew Edwards, Mathematical
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History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced in
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El Fureidis. By the Author of "The Lamplighter" and "Mabel Vaughan."
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Dickens's Short Stories. Containing Thirty-One Stories never before
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A Mother's Trials. By the Author of "My Lady." New York. Harper &
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Letters of Alexander von Humboldt to Varnhagen von Ense. From 1827 to
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Translated from the Second German Edition, by Friedrich Kapp. New
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Our Living Representative Men. From Official and Original Sources. By
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Leaves of Grass. By Walt Whitman. Boston. Thayer & Eldridge. 12mo.
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Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff,
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412. $1.50.

Text-Book in Intellectual Philosophy, for Schools and Colleges;
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Katherine Morris: an Autobiography. By the Author of "Step by Step"
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Lectures on Natural History: its Relations to Intellect, Taste,
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Home and College. A Public Address delivered in the Hall of the
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Devereux. A Tale. By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. Library Edition.
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The Last Days of Pompeii. By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. Library
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Norton's Hand-Book to Europe; or, How to Travel in the Old World. By
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The West Indies and the Spanish Main. By Anthony Trollope, Author of
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The New Discussion of the Trinity, Containing Notices of Professor
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Life of George Washington. By Washington Irving. National Edition.
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Hawksview. A Familiar History of our Own Times. By Holme Lee, Author
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Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander, D.D.
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Charles Scribner. 12mo. pp. viii., 412, 379. $2.50.

A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Genius of Washington Irving,
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Analytic Orthography; an Investigation of the Sounds of the Voice,
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its Bearing upon Etymology. By S.S. Haldeman, A.M., Professor in
Delaware College, etc. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 4to. pp. viii.,
148.

The Elements of Christian Doctrine, and its Development. Five
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January, February, and March, 1860, and printed at its Request. By
Edward E. Hale. Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. pp. 68.

Mary Bunyan, the Blind Dreamer's Daughter. A Tale of Religious
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Unitarianism Defined. The Scripture Doctrine of the Father, Son, and
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Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. 272.

State-Pride. An Oration, delivered before the Calliopean and
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Student-Songs. Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. Pittsburgh. W.S. Haven.
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Tom Brown at Oxford: a Sequel to School-Days at Rugby. By Thomas
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The Countess and the Page. A Tale of Florentine Society. By G.W.M.
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Lucile. By Owen Meredith, Author of "The Wanderer," "Clytemnestra,"
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