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[page 40, column 2, continued:]
LITERARY COMITY.
TO THE EDITOR OR THE NATION:
SIR: Does the notice, “All rights reserved,” on the title-page of a publication convey any intimation which other publishers are bound in law or courtesy to respect?
I will particularize. Not long ago there appeared in a periodical published in England and the United States, and bearing on its title-page the above notice, an article in which were contained sundry unknown, or almost unknown, pieces by an American poet dead many years ago. The writer of the article sent me advance-sheets, transferred all his rights to me, and requested me for certain sufficient reasons to copyright these poems. This I did, covering them with a publisher's copyright.
So soon as the periodical containing them was published, a daily paper of some repute, disregarding the notice on the title-page, transferred these poems to its columns as if they were public property.
About the law there is no question; but the point on which I wish to be informed is this: Am I right or wrong in considering this action a violation of literary comity? — I am, sir, etc.,
WM. HAND BROWNE.
BALTIMORE July 11, 1876.
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Notes:
Although it is not specified in this letter, the article in question was “The Unknown Poetry of Edgar Poe,” first published in Belgravia for Jun 1876 and reprinted, apparently without permission, in the Daily Graphic of New York. In the 1960 catalog of the Ingram-Poe collection, and his 1977 book Building Poe Biography, John C. Miller inexplicably calls this article “Suppressed Poetry of Edgar Poe.” No article using that title has been located.
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[S:0 - NNY, 1876] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Literary Comity (W. H. Browne, 1876)