Anthony Trollope: Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

17. CHAPTER XVII - THE AMERICAN POSTAL TREATY--THE QUESTION 0F COPYRIGHT WITH AMERICA--FOUR MORE NOVELS (continued)

Since this was written the Commission on the law of copyright has sat and made its report. With the great body of it I agree, and could serve no reader by alluding here at length to matters which are discussed there. But in regard to this question of international copyright with the United States, I think that we were incorrect in the expression of an opinion that fair justice,--or justice approaching to fairness,--is now done by American publishers to English authors by payments made by them for early sheets. I have just found that œ20 was paid to my publisher in England for the use of the early sheets of a novel for which I received œ1600 in England. When asked why he accepted so little, he assured me that the firm with whom he dealt would not give more. "Why not go to another firm?" I asked. No other firm would give a dollar, because no other firm would care to run counter to that great firm which had assumed to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon after received a copy of my own novel in the American form, and found that it was published for 7 1/2d. That a great sale was expected can be argued from the fact that without a great sale the paper and printing necessary for the republication of a three-volume novel could not be supplied. Many thousand copies must have been sold. But from these the author received not one shilling. I need hardly point out that the sum of œ20 would not do more than compensate the publisher for his trouble in making the bargain. The publisher here no doubt might have refused to supply the early sheets, but he had no means of exacting a higher price than that offered. I mention the circumstance here because it has been boasted, on behalf of the American publishers, that though there is no international copyright, they deal so liberally with English authors as to make it unnecessary that the English author should be so protected. With the fact of the œ20 just brought to my knowledge, and with the copy of my book published at 7 1/2d. now in my hands, I feel that an international copyright is very necessary for my protection.