ENGLISH AND AMERICAN PIRATES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1557, 28 September 1912, Page 9

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN PIRATES.

A pretty constant theme o? writers in the American press is the unfairness of the traditional British belief in the piratical habits of American publishing houses. The latest American writer to undertake the task of showing that American authors have suffered as much at the hands of British publishers as English authors at the hands of American publishers is. Professor Algernon ■ ~Tassin. It was a case of the pot and the kettle, he says, the New York "Bookman," and "what honour there was lay chiefly with the American publishers. Through a lack of knowledge, he says, Americans still meekly bow their heads to the accusation of . George Moore in 1889 that America . had not yet come within tho pale of., the morals of civilisation. . "Mr. George Moore," lio says, "provoked by a perfectly fair-minded and well-informed statement of Mr. George Haven Putnam, had retorted that retaliation was ; the only course open to the English publishers, and that if one of them paid a single farthing to an American publisher for what he could get for nothing, ho outquixoted Don Quixote; anil' he demanded (in the pistoling tone which by that time ?ame naturally to Englishmen in speaking of the reprint business of that buccaneering age) that Mr. Putnam provide him with tile names of even two American publishers, who had not pirated. In reply Mr. Putnam stated that the Appletons, the Scribners, the Houghtons, the IloltSi the Roberts, Little Brown, his own firm, and many others had dealt with 'their .English authors in precisely tho way they, had dealt with their American ones; that the bulk of unauthorised reprinting in America had been done by five firms, four of which wero Canadian; and that—as far as retaliation'was concerned—tho English appropriation of American books dated from tho very first book published in America which' was likely to repay stealing. These statements are substantially the facts of tho matter. "That these facts should not be known, to the average American is -natural onough. Though any American reader could have seen when the bookstalls were flooded with pirated editions of English writers—both tho price and the lack of announcement of authorisation telling him so at once—only the American render who travelled in person or tho American author who travelled in spite of himself was in a position to know of the piracies committed by the English publishers. But these facts'should have been well enough known in England, and chiefly by the very people whose accusations wero the bitterest."

English journalistic and.publishing circles made their accusations without having applied to the authors whom they declared had been pillaged. On the other hand, many .authors made public acknowledgment of the fairness with which, they, had been treated. "The first money Herbert Spencer over received from a publis'her was sent in 1801 by the. Appletons, and every year afterwards ho received the percentage usually paid to ;native 2authors." Furthermore, "Scribners ; paid Max Muller mid Trench; Ticknor mid Fields paid .Tennyson, De Quincey, Jliss Thacheray, Browning, Huglies, Kcade, Kingsley, Arnold, Br.-John Brown, Mnyns Eeid, Dickens, , , , Tennyson .counted on

his American income with certainty. In "l'he Athenaeum' E. Lynn Lynton wrote that Harpers sent quito unsolicited payments for reprinflng two novels; and Harpers' English authors joined in a round-robin praising tho fair and courteous treatment of the house."

English piracies, wo are told, began as early as 1781, when Morse's; "Geography" proved to bo worth a great deal to tho English publisher who appropriated it. "It was tho forerunner of a Ion? lino of school or text-books or books of tho popular science variety which in England had almost no competition, and hence became, in a special way, a gold mino to English reprinters." In 1838 America hod acquired somo writers of importance, and an official report to tho 25th Congress states that "up to' that year no fewer than six hundred Americans had been reprinted iii England." In 1818 another memorial of protest was sent to Congress headed by John Jay and Bryant. Dana's "Two ■Years Before tlio Most" had circulated in Epgland in three or four rival editions, ono of which reached a salo of fifteen thousand copies. "Tho royalties which 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' would have reaped from its innumerablo reprints cannot oven be estimated." Hero aro moro gleanings from tho record:

■ " 'There is an American lady living in Hartford,' wroto James Parton in the 'AJlniitic,' in 18G7, 'whom tho American Government lias permitted to be robbed of two hundred thousand dollars. In tho same way, and oven more culpably, it has allowed Motley and Bancroft and Prescott to bo robbed of the value of-literary labours attained only by tho aid of extensive and costly libraries and collections. We noticed tho other day in an English publication a page of advertisements of thirteen volumes, twelve of which wero American. "The cheap .publication .stores of Great Britain are heaped with reprints, tho solo of which yields nothing to tho author. We havo seen in England a series of school writing-books, tho invention of a Phjladelphian, the English copies of which betrayed no traco of their origin.' "Hawthorne rccorjad in 'English Note Books' that a leading London houso had sold-.without any profit to him uncounted thousands of his works. 'Of the ten works 'I .have written,' wrote A. S. Roe to tho International Copyright Association, in 1868,'' seven have been republished in Eng:la"nd< I received in all 275 dollars for works which had a circulation of over one 'hundred thousand.' The same year ■Richard Grant White c T!ie assertion' that for one American book stolen in England a thousand English books aro stolen in America, is mero tall talk: for American publishers print only a very few of the best and most popular English works.' This statement was corroborated by Mr. Edmund Gosse, writing in an English periodical twenty years later. "In 1876 Longfellow wroto to a lady in England who complained to him of American pirates: 'It may comfort you to know that I havo had twenty-two publishers in England and Scotland and only four of them ever took the slightest notice ,of my existence, even so far as to send me-a copy of the book.' In 1679 the number of American reprints published yearlr in England had reached 10 per cent. Professor Brander Matthews records that the author of 'Night-Cap Stories' wrote him that she called on her self-appointed London publishers and asked for a set of the books to take home; but although they had "sold many thousands of them they told'her they would give her the volumes only on receipt of the published price. Of Noah Brook's 'Boy Emigrants,' the London publishers _ openly boasted they had sold 'more, copies than were issued in America. 'Entering a shop :in London,' wroto Edward Eggleston in 'The Century,' 1883, ;'I found the. bookseller in a . rage against America and . the'. Americans. .1 retorted that he had not suffered so much from American'as I" had from English publishers. Indeed, our publishers have, practised' privateering for'so long that a sort- of Tipnour • among' themselves preyails with the' more nrosnerous ones which is unknown to the English publishers, who do not even rifle your pockets politely.'"