The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To SIR JAMES EMERSON TENNENT,1 3 JANUARY 1854
Text from facsimiles in Christie’s catalogue, Dec 1988(aa) and Sotheby’s catalogue, June 2010(bb).
(a)Tavistock House | Tuesday Third January 1854
My Dear Sir
I have read the draught of the article on the proposed treaty of Copyright with America,2 designed to be substituted for the Sixth article of the Convention; and I consider it decidedly advantageous to English Authors, and can have no doubt of their generally receiving it in that light. I may be supposed to have a considerable interest in the question, and I am satisfied with it myself. On principle I object to any limitation whatever on an Author’s right in his own works; but, as the law of England confiscates his property when his successors mosta bneed it,3 I have no right to quarrel with America for requiring him to establish his title to it within three months. The provisions as to the stereotyping or printing of a book taking place in the country in which it is republished, being reciprocal, does not seem unreasonable or unfair. I have mentioned this point to my printers Messrs. Bradbury and Evans of Whitefriars, who are in a very large way of business as printers of books; and they concur with me in this opinion. With many thanks for your courtesy, I am
Sir James Emerson Tennent
My Dear Sir | Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS(b)
- 1. Sir James Emerson Tennent (1804-69; Dictionary of National Biography), politician and author: see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 701n.
- 2. A Treaty “for the Establishment of International Copyright” had been signed in Washington (see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 713n) in Feb 53; opposed by American publishers, it failed to be ratified by the Senate: see further on this and the Sixth Article, Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 236, nn. 6 & 7.
- 3. By the Copyright Act, 1842, copyright ran for 42 years from the date of publication or seven years after the author’s death, whichever was longer (see Robert L. Patten, CD and His Publishers, 1978, p. 19 & n. 28).