Hardy life
Sir: Bookend wrote a piece about 'red faces at Weidenfeld' because we had forgotten to clear copyright permissions from Macmillan for extracts quoted, from Hardy in our forthcoming Genius' of Thomas Hardy. His observations are, I suppose predictably, ill-founded. Far from overlooking such an obvious point we did what is always done in such circumstances — we sought to clear the necessary permissions when the contributions were in and we knew what extracts were involved and therefore, what permissions were needed.
Amazingly we were refused by the copyright proprietors, Macmillan, on the grounds that our book, if published in 1975, would compete commercially with a similar volume of their own. So we are publishing in 1976. The propriety of Macmillan's attitude taken over a classic author who died as long ago as 1928 and against a book of literary criticism by authors allowed even by Bookend as highly distinguished; on considerations of pure business advantage; the rectitude of being able to place this kind of embargo on the work of a rival publisher (most copyrights are owned by authors or their estates in which case no such difficulties can arise); indeed the whole basis on which authors are able to use quotation from copyright material to illustrate their points of criticism or explanation — these are important aspects which might deserve the attention of literary journalists not overcommitted to gossipy inaccuracies.
Christopher Falkus Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 11 St John's Hill, London SWI I 1XA.
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