Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface: “Imperfect Title”
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: “Lady-Writers” and “Copyright, Authors, and Authorship” in Nineteenth-Century America
- 1 Authors, Wives, Slaves: Coverture, Copyright, and Authorial Dispossession, 1831–1869
- 2 “Suited to the Market”: Catharine Sedgwick, Female Authorship, and the Literary Property Debates, 1822–1842
- 3 “When I Can Read My Title Clear”: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Stowe v. Thomas Copyright Infringement Case (1853)
- 4 “Every body sees the theft”: Fanny Fern and Periodical Reprinting in the 1850s
- 5 A “Rank Rebel” Lady and Her Literary Property: Augusta Jane Evans and Copyright, the Civil War and After, 1861–1868
- Epilogue: Belford v. Scribner (1892) and the Ghost of Mary Virginia Terhune's Phemie's Temptation (1869); or, The Lessons of the “Lady-Writers” of the 1820s through the 1860s for Literary History and Twenty-First-Century Copyright Law
- Index
Introduction: “Lady-Writers” and “Copyright, Authors, and Authorship” in Nineteenth-Century America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface: “Imperfect Title”
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: “Lady-Writers” and “Copyright, Authors, and Authorship” in Nineteenth-Century America
- 1 Authors, Wives, Slaves: Coverture, Copyright, and Authorial Dispossession, 1831–1869
- 2 “Suited to the Market”: Catharine Sedgwick, Female Authorship, and the Literary Property Debates, 1822–1842
- 3 “When I Can Read My Title Clear”: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Stowe v. Thomas Copyright Infringement Case (1853)
- 4 “Every body sees the theft”: Fanny Fern and Periodical Reprinting in the 1850s
- 5 A “Rank Rebel” Lady and Her Literary Property: Augusta Jane Evans and Copyright, the Civil War and After, 1861–1868
- Epilogue: Belford v. Scribner (1892) and the Ghost of Mary Virginia Terhune's Phemie's Temptation (1869); or, The Lessons of the “Lady-Writers” of the 1820s through the 1860s for Literary History and Twenty-First-Century Copyright Law
- Index
Summary
Not pay us for our toils of thought!
The struggling of our brains!
By old George Fox, the indignant blood
Is lava in my veins!
Shame on our country and its laws!
Strike, let the Bastile [sic] fall!
Down with the tyrant Publishers!
Hurrah for Faneuil Hall!
On October 10, 1847, the Saturday Evening Post published on its front page a group of poems, tales, and letters under the title “Copyright, Authors, and Authorship” by one of its regular contributors, Grace Greenwood (pseudonym of Sarah Jane Clarke, later Sarah Jane Lippincott). As the headnote “explains,”
A short time since a friend of ours, a gentleman connected with the press, being in favor of an International Copyright Law, and feeling an interest in the encouragement of native genius by adequate pecuniary compensation, applied to many of our first authors for their opinions concerning these subjects, leaving them at liberty to embody their sentiments in the form of poems, letters, or sketches. But our friend, being called to the defence of his country, in the midst of his labors of love, left in our hands the important documents. It will be seen that the collection was not complete, several authors of note not having reported themselves; but such as it is, we give it to the public, to read and ponder and inwardly digest.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005