THE DICKENS STAMP.
[To MR EDITOR OF vHs " SPECTATOR:1 SlE,—May I remind your readers that many of them who believe that the right to property is one of the most powerful stimuli to human progress have upon their shelves copies of books which are filched from their creators by an unjust law ? May I entreat them to examine the works they possess of Charles Dickens, and ascertain if they are published after the expiry of the limited term which the law allows, and if, therefore, they have ever returned one farthing to the novelist's heirs ?
I plead on behalf of the descendants of "the good, the gentle, the high-minded Dickens," not because three of that family are drawing a niggardly pension of £25 per annum from the British Government, but because, if there is any argument in favour of vested rights in land, houses, or chattels, that argument is also true of those who have toiled in the production of books,—books which have changed the thought, the morals, or the sentiment of the world, which their creators have slaved to produce, and the rewards for which (if any there are) they and theirs are as fully entitled to share.
May I 'further remind your readers that no volume recently published of Dickens has returned any copyright fee, save those which bear the Dickens copyright stamp ? This stamp is now on sale for one penny each—in sheets of twelve—at every bookseller's in the land, and at all Messrs. W. H. Smith's and Wyman's news-stalls. His Majesty the King, her Majesty the Queen, her Majesty Queen Alexandra, and other members of the Royal Family, ever ready to be the exemplars in every good and just cause, have led the way by placing the copyright stamps in their volumes of Dickens. Their example has been followed by many of the leading statesmen, lawyers, authors, actors, editors, and divines of the day. If every owner of Dickens will not shirk his penny, a magnificent centenary tribute will be assured. For there are forty-eight million copies of Dickens extant.
To those of us who are striving to bring about this inter- national recognition of Charles Dickens's dues, nothing can be more gratifying than the decision of the great firm of Messrs. Macmillan to insert a Dickens stamp gratis in every volume of every edition of Dickens issued by them during the hundredth year of the novelist. The significance of this must not be overlooked. It means that, for the first time in literary history the representatives of a great writer will he in receipt of a copyright fee not conferred by the action of the copyright laws ; small, it is true, but to which they are entitled as truly as the heirs of any landlord are entitled to receive tribute in the shape of rent. I beg all readers of the Spectator who are also owners of even a single volume of Dickens to apply at once for the Dickens stamp.—I am,
17-21 Tavistock Street, W.C.
[We sincerely trust that the sale of the stamps will be on such a scale throughout the English-speaking world as to place Dickens's descendants beyond the reach of pecuniary anxiety. That is in every way a sound plan for commemo- rating the centenary of Dickens.—En. Spectator.1
Previous page
