There appears to be a general perception that Churchill's early works are in the public domain - Malakand, London to Ladysmith, Ian Hamilton, and River War - and hence they are the ones mostly commonly pounced on by the print-on-demand vultures.
I cannot judge if this perception is accurate or not. However, there is a very interesting exchange of letters in the Churchill archives which may cast some light. See CHAR 8/274 120, 121 and 124. Churchill, in July 1930, writes to Longmans Green indicating that he wishes to quote passages from those works in 'My Early Life' which was then in the later stages of composition. He indicates that, since the works have long been out of print, the Longmans copyright may have expired but that in any case he is looking for their permission and coyly suggests that they might wish to return the rights to him. He makes an offer of payment but, knowing WSC, it is clearly half-hearted at best. Longmans respond that they are happy to transfer 'such rights as we may have in the copyright to yourself. For this we should not like to ask any payment'. It seems, therefore, that Longmans actively relinquished their copyright back to WSC - but the key question is still whether, in 1930, they still retained any rights to relinquish. I would gladly quote the two letters in their entirety but, ironically, copyright considerations prevent me doing so. Best, Dave _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert Courts Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 5:05 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic No, it isn't. I think I drew this to their attention about 10 years ago, but the result escapes me. But list members might like to just hold off on Gutenberg until we know. On 20 Jun 2012, at 08:53, Allen Packwood wrote: Many thanks Robert. The copyright question would be one for Curtis Brown. the one thing I have learned is that it is never as straightforward as you think! Allen _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raphael Saldanha Sent: 19 June 2012 17:19 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic Oh! I'm sorry about the misleading link. Thanks for the correct one. On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Robert Courts <[email protected]> wrote: Allen is right about that, but these are our WSC: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1601 I've always wondered about the copyright position. These early books are available on the Amazon Kindle store, in fact. On 19 Jun 2012, at 17:07, Allen Packwood wrote: I am afraid that this is the US author Winston Churchill, not our Winston Spencer-Churchill. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raphael Saldanha Sent: 19 June 2012 16:15 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic This appears to be a very nice project. But what can be said about the files available at the Project Gutenberg? http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/213 Are they good sources? On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Editor, Finest Hour <[email protected]> wrote: Jonathan: I had the pleasure of helping steer them to the right editions (not those edited Collected Works-Leo Cooper ones monkeyed with by Fred Woods), and Mark Weber found them inexpensive copies with true texts they could scan. The result will be Churchill's words as he signed off on them. Reported in full in Finest Hour 155/Summer. We cannot underestimate the importance of this step forward. Huge credit to Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown who drove the effort. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/churchillchat/-/vC09s68xtrcJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] <mailto:churchillchat%[email protected]> . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- Atenciosamente, Raphael Saldanha [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] <mailto:churchillchat%[email protected]> . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- Atenciosamente, Raphael Saldanha [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en.
