My sister recently acquired what appears to be an old book of Poe's poetry, and she's trying to figure out its age. There's no copyright page, no date information in the front at all. It has a publisher and address, and when she googled it, she found something that said this publisher was at this location between 1900-1912.
Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in their books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking it to someone?
> My sister recently acquired what appears to be an old book of Poe's > poetry, and she's trying to figure out its age. There's no copyright page, > no date information in the front at all. It has a publisher and address, > and when she googled it, she found something that said this publisher was > at this location between 1900-1912.
> Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in their > books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking it to > someone?
> Thanks, > Melissa
I have a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It dates to 1885--Houghton, Mifflin and Company. On the copyright page it says Copyright 1851 and 1878, The Riverside Press.
And I imagine copyright info goes back way before then.
<<Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in their books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking it to someone? Thanks, Melissa >>
Books were certainly copyrighted by then, and even before they were the date of publication was usually listed.
She might try posting her question at rec.arts.book collecting --someone might know if the book is valuable; though my husband told me there are now a lot of flame wars there. Ellen
> "Melissa" <mmcoo...@alumnidotutexas.net> wrote in message >> Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in >> their books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking >> it to someone?
Books from the 1500s often have a publication year indicated - so that practice actually predates copyright by more than a century.
Not sure how you could date the book definitively. Some dusty corner of my memory suggests there once was a year-by-year catalog of books, but if so I can't recall what it was named and it probably isn't available in many libraries now since the National Union Catalog of Pre-1956 Imprints came along, followed by (gasp!) computers.
I notice that Worldcat has some early 1900s volumes of Poe with dates like (1900-1905?) so perhaps not dating books was not uncommon.
Melissa wrote: > My sister recently acquired what appears to be an old book of Poe's > poetry, and she's trying to figure out its age. There's no copyright > page, no date information in the front at all. It has a publisher and > address, and when she googled it, she found something that said this > publisher was at this location between 1900-1912.
> Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in their > books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking it to > someone?
> Thanks, > Melissa
This is fun. It combines two loves of mine: the law and books. The first copyright law was the English Statute of Anne (1709), 8 Anne c.19. The U. S. Constitution contains a clause (Art. 1, Sec.8, Cl. 8) allowing Congress to pass laws for the protection of copyright. This was implemented by the Copyright Act of 1790. The concept spread fairly rapidly for a legal idea, and by 1886 the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was established. Curiously, the U.S. did not become a party to it until 1989.
Looking back to actual practice in the U.S. in the 18th century, this country had become a haven for pirate editions of English works. Publishers in America would get a copy of an English novel and would print it here, often with little or no information about publishing history, least of all with any acknowledgment of the English copyright, and certainly without remuneration back to the copyright holder. This pirate trend continued strongly into the 19th century as some American publishers of the time argued that as a developing nation, this was the only way that they could compete with the established publishing houses of London. Indeed, you will come across many books from the 19th century which lack attribution to the English copyright holder. Granted, there were legitimate American publishing houses. For instance, one of my favorites was Ticknor and Fields of Boston. They encouraged American writers and were the publishers for Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson and others. (For a good historical mystery novel centered on their house read Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club.)
One source of information is http://used.addall.com , a website which compiles information from other websites about books for sale. Some dealers are more knowledgeable than others and provide considerable information about the origins of the book they are offering. On the other hand, it may be that you cannot get closer than the decade frame in which you and your sister have been able to place the publication.
-- Francis A. Miniter
Oscuramente libros, laminas, llaves siguen mi suerte.
On Nov 7, 6:38 pm, "Melissa" <mmcoo...@alumnidotutexas.net> wrote:
> My sister recently acquired what appears to be an old book of Poe's poetry, > and she's trying to figure out its age. There's no copyright page, no date > information in the front at all. It has a publisher and address, and when > she googled it, she found something that said this publisher was at this > location between 1900-1912.
> Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in their > books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking it to > someone?
> Thanks, > Melissa
There was a period when U.S. publishers did not put dates in the books. I don't know how long it lasted, and of couirse I don't know exactly when it occurred -- but I think it was fairly early in the 20th century. I've seen books pinted earlier (19th century and back another 200 years) with dates of publication; I've seen books printed in the 1930s with copyright pages, giving date of publication (not much else; copyright pages now have lots more info than they used to have). But I've seen a group of books handed down from a friend's grandfather that had no dates at all, and the 1910s would fit the books I saw. Maybe the 1920s, even.
> My sister recently acquired what appears to be an old book of Poe's > poetry, and she's trying to figure out its age. There's no copyright page, > no date information in the front at all. It has a publisher and address, > and when she googled it, she found something that said this publisher was > at this location between 1900-1912.
> Does anyone know when publishers started putting copyright info in their > books? How else could she figure out its date, other than taking it to > someone?
Poe died in 1849, so the collection you have was probably printed after the poems were in the public domain. For most of US history copyrights were 28 years and could be renewed once, so by 1905 all of Poe's copyrights would have expired. His poetry and stories were extremely popular and many households would have had such a collection, so I doubt your sister's book is worth more than a few dollars.
On Nov 9, 8:22 pm, "Melissa" <mmcoo...@alumnidotutexas.net> wrote:
> Thanks for all the info! > Melissa
A little more info: the books I have seen without copyright date, or even date of publication, were all new when the actual copies I saw were printed. And I've remembered more books from the same period written and printed in London with no dates in them! This was a series of factual books on items of contemporary commerce, with the library's date of acquisition (1917) penciled in -- but no printed dates at all (very useful when one of the books mentions something having happened within the previous 70 years).. The library's catalog gives the publication dates as 1911, 1912, 1914. Another English book from a different publisher also had no date printed in it; the library's catalog says it was published in 1923
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