Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- 2 PETITIONS AND COPYRIGHT
- 3 CRITICS IN PARLIAMENT
- 4 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE I: PRINT WORKERS AND THEIR ALLIES
- 5 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE II: PUBLISHING AND PUBLISHERS
- 6 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE DAILY PRESS
- 7 AUTHORS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORS' ORGANISATIONS
- 8 THE MAKING OF THE CASE FOR THE BILL
- 9 CONCLUSION
- Appendix I Chronology of the bills
- Appendix II Successive versions of the bill
- Appendix III The Copyright Act 1842
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - AUTHORS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORS' ORGANISATIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- 2 PETITIONS AND COPYRIGHT
- 3 CRITICS IN PARLIAMENT
- 4 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE I: PRINT WORKERS AND THEIR ALLIES
- 5 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE II: PUBLISHING AND PUBLISHERS
- 6 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE DAILY PRESS
- 7 AUTHORS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORS' ORGANISATIONS
- 8 THE MAKING OF THE CASE FOR THE BILL
- 9 CONCLUSION
- Appendix I Chronology of the bills
- Appendix II Successive versions of the bill
- Appendix III The Copyright Act 1842
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
With some notable but individual exceptions, most authors continued to sell their copyrights outright until nearly the end of the nineteenth century. Authorship was still relatively young as a profession, and attempts to unite it were, on the whole, unsuccessful.
The earliest known authors' organisation was the Society for the Encouragement of Learning, founded in 1735 to give authors a rightful share in the profits of their books. Jerdan's account is of a plan to publish works of ‘sterling quality’. The committee of management included ‘noblemen and scholars of the highest rank’ as well as ‘representatives of professional authorship’. It seems to have been a wholly philanthropic organisation, which did its own publishing and gave all profits to the authors. Although this aim proved unsustainable, it apparently alarmed the commercial book trade. Three booksellers were appointed, with a 33 per cent ‘allowance’, later reduced to 15 per cent. In fact the booksellers would neither buy nor sell the society's books, and putting the sales into the hands of adversaries was seen to be an error. Charles Rivington was an active member but ‘as he and his colleagues sustained much injury through it, he withdrew from it’. The society staggered on for thirteen years, and had a final balance of £24 12s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Literary Copyright Reform in Early Victorian EnglandThe Framing of the 1842 Copyright Act, pp. 149 - 175Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999