Charles Dicken's Stamp

Horowhenua Chronicle, 29 September 1910, Page 4

Charles Dicken's Stamp

A MAGAZINE'S SUGGESTION.

In veiw of the approaching centenary next year of the birth of Charles Dickons, the August number of the Strand Magazine suggests form of International Dickens lestimonia.l which should commend itself by reason of its simplicity to all lovers of Dickens' works who dosire to pay back some of tho "debt immense of endless gratitude to their author in the shape of a "deferred royalty" for tho benefit of his descendants. Dickens did not live long enough for his books to enjoy the protection at present afforded by the laws of copyright, and there now survive three'orchis children and seventeen of his grandchildren, some of whom are in straitened ci re uins ta noes.

To ameliorate their position, therefore, the Strand Magazine suggests tho printing of a designed stamp which could be bought foi one penny by possessors of copies of Dickens' works and affixed in each volume. If, as the Strand Magazine shows, a quarter of tho estimated twenty-four million extant copies of Dickens' works bore such a stamp, a handsome sum would be realised for the benefit of the descendants of the widest read and most popular novelist in the world. Many well known l,icken,s lovers have been approached in tho matter, and have promised that each volume of the works of Dickons in theii possession shall bear a ropy of this Dickens stamp, which, it is proposed, shall bo on salo all over the world during 1911. The scheme has the support of Mr Thomas Hardy, who calls it "a highly ingenious one, and I can see no objection to it." T.oid Alvorstone, Sir Ray Lancaster, Sir L. Alma Tadema, Mr Walter C'rnne. Mr W. W. Jacobs, Mi J orey Fitzgerald, .Air Gilbert Chesterton, Mr Robert Barr, Mr Tom Gallon, Mr AYatts-Diinton, and others. Mr Edmund Gosse asks whether a bibliophile would care to affix siitill a stamp to his volumes, and his question is answered by .Mi M. H. Spieliuann, who writes:— "Personally I should prefer to pay forfeit of a dozen stamps per volume and [ gladly pledge mvself to do so.

"ff all goes well," adcTs the Stirand Magazine, "full particulars mg the date when the Dickens stamps will bo on salo will be duly announced. From all booksellers and stationers in the capitals of Europe, and throughout the British Empire we hope it will soon he possible to obtain this Dickens stamp— itself a small token tha.t the name and fame of Dickens are still .potent to evoke gratitude and to redress a manifest injustice towards those he loved and who bear his name.