William Wordsworth's letter: "The Law of Copyright" (1838)

Summary

THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT BY William Wordsworth LONDON PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 1916 THE Copyright Act referred to by Wordsworth in the following document was presented to the House of Commons for the first time on April 18th, 1838, the day upon which the poet addressed his open letter to Serjeant Talfourd. The letter appeared in The Morning Post of April 23rd, 1838, and had apparently escaped all notice until I chanced upon it recently when searching a file of the paper for any stray writing of Wordsworth’s.⁠[1] Prefixed to the text of the letter was the following editorial comment:⁠— “We feel very sincere pleasure in having been selected as the medium for giving to the public Mr. Wordsworth’s sentiments concerning Serjeant Talfourd’s proposed Bill for the amendment of the law of copyright. It is a source of additional gratification to us that the opinions of such a man as Mr. Wordsworth are so completely in accordance with those we have already on several occasions endeavoured to impress on the attention of our readers.” [6] When he applied himself to the composition of the present letter, Wordsworth was for the second time employing his pen in support of Talfourd’s Bill. An earlier letter, dated April 12th, 1838, addressed to the Editor of The Kendal Mercury, had appeared in the columns of that paper on April 16th, 1838, over the pseudonymous initials “A. B.” This earlier letter is already well known, and is included in the Prose Works of William Wordsworth, edited by William Knight, 1896, Vol. ii, pp. 375–382. Its successor, now rescued from its obscurity in a dusty file of an old newspaper, should henceforth find a place beside it. T. J. W. 25, Heath Drive, Hampstead, N.W. [7] THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT. Rydal Mount, April 18th, 1838. My Dear Sir, A strong opposition, which has manifested itself by public meetings and petitions to the House of Commons, having started up among printers, publishers, and others to your Bill for amending the law of...