Question of Copyright
must thank Professor. Maxwell for having taken up a point for Dr. Rowse. who has himself been rather savage of late, calling one reviewer 'a little bitch.' I think Dr. Rowse might be grateful, too.
I agree with Professor Maxwell that I misled 8. Perlator readers in calling Dr. Rowse's assertion, In his edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, that copy- right in Elizabethan times was secured by publica- tion an 'elementary error.' But I don't think I was unfair to Dr. Rowse. I should have explained that It was an elementary error in editorial procedure, on his part, to make this. assertion without men- tioning any other possibilities-- namely, the widely accepted view, that copyright was established by entry in the Stationers' Register (more strictly speak- 1118, perhaps one should say, to paraphrase Greg, that entrance was regarded by the Stationers' Com- pany as essential evidence of copyright).
As for elevating the notion of Elizabethan pub- lication as establishing copyright to the dignity of
minority point of view'—I had felt it might better be described as an understandable eccentricity on the part of one or two distinguished scholars. I his met it only in the writings of H. T. Price, "s pupil Kirschbaum, and in a study of the Had Quarto of Roeo and Juliet by Harry R. Hoppe.
discussioni of the matter in the course of uis chapter on copyright in The Shakespeare First F.°1'0 (pp. 28-75) and in an article in The Library lEntrarlee and Copyright.' March 1946, xxvi, pp.
380-10) had always seemed to me to dispose of it.
However, I have, of course, the very greatest respect for the weight of Professor Maxwell's opinion, and I assume that the Price-Kirschbaum view must still be held by a minority. I was not aware of this. I would concede, too (having looked again at the evidence), that the accepted view, although a very strong case indeed, cannot be called proven.
I had understood privately from Professor Max- well that he had so far been unhappy enough to miss a sight of Dr. Rowse's edition. I think that if he could grant himself a few minutes away from teach- ing and scholarship to peruse a copy at Newcastle Station bookstall he would better understand what I meant.
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