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To G. G. Leveson-Gower, Earl Granville   [before 19 April 1872]1

Memorial of British Authors to the Right Hon. Earl Granville, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on the subject of Copyright in the United States.

Looking forward with satisfaction to the prospect of harmonious relations being happily established between the United States and the United Kingdom, we, the undersigned, hope for a reconsideration of the policy in virtue of which British authors, as authors, enjoy no rights which American citizens are bound to respect.2

Letters from influential Americans—one of them a leading New York publisher—which have recently appeared here, joined with the approval of them expressed in the journals of the United States, show the desire of the Americans for the conclusion of a Copyright Convention between their country and ours.3

We understand that the demands of publishers in this country have hitherto been the most formidable obstacles to the negotiation of a Copyright Convention. We are of opinion that the interests of our publishers in American copyrights are quite independent of the just claims of British authors; and that the latter may be fully admitted without recognition of the former. We think it would be a grave error if the settlement of this matter were retarded, or rendered impossible, in consequence of two classes of claims, which, in essence, are wholly distinct, if not antagonistic, being regarded by negotiators representing this country as identical and inseparable.

Americans distinguish between the author, as producing the ideas, and the publisher, as producing the material vehicle by which these ideas are conveyed to readers. They admit the claim of the British author to be paid by them for his brain-work. The claim of the British book-manufacturer, to a monopoly of their book-market, they do not admit. To give the British author a copyright is simply to agree that the American publisher shall pay him for work done. To give the British publisher a copyright is to open the American market to him on terms which prevent the American publisher from competing.

Without dwelling on the argument of the Americans that such an arrangement would not be free trade, but the negation of free trade, and merely noticing that further argument that, while their protective system raises the prices of all the raw materials, free competition with the British book-manufacturer would be fatal to the American book-manufacturer, it is clear that the Americans have strong reasons for refusing to permit the British publisher to share in the copyright which they are willing to grant to the British author.4

We venture to suggest, therefore, that, responding to the cordial feeling recently expressed by Americans on the subject, and duly appreciating the force of their reasons for making the above distinction, future negotiations should be conducted with a view to secure a copyright on the conditions they specify.

Without making it the foundation of a formal claim for reciprocity of treatment, we mention the fact, that American authors may, if they please, secure all the advantages of copyright in the United Kingdom which are enjoyed by native authors.

(Signed) HERBERT SPENCER (And 51 others.)5

Memorial

1
This memorial was forwarded to Earl Granville, the foreign secretary, on 19 April 1872, according to the letter that precedes it in Parliamentary Papers. A version of it, also signed by CD, was presented at a meeting of publishers in New York on 6 February 1872 (Publishers’ and Stationers’ Weekly Trade Circular, 8 February 1872, pp. 91, 94–5; Appleton 1877, pp. 247–8). The only significant difference between the version presented in New York in February and the version transcribed here is that the words ‘Looking forward with satisfaction to the prospect of’ were omitted from the beginning of the New York version, and the following text was added after the first sentence of the second paragraph: ‘They maintain that such a convention should provide for the vesting of the British author’s American copyright absolutely and inalienably in him. That condition appears to us both equitable and satisfactory.’
2
No copyright treaty existed between the United Kingdom and the United States, with the result that American publishers could reprint and sell British books without offering any recompense to the author or publisher (Seville 2006, pp. 148–9). CD’s own books were by this time regularly published in the United States by D. Appleton & Co, who paid CD a percentage out of courtesy and in the hope of receiving early copy to enable them to publish in advance of competitors (see Correspondence vol. 8, enclosure to letter from Asa Gray, 20 February 1860).
3
There was correspondence on the subject of international copyright in The Times in October and November 1871; William Henry Appleton, head of D. Appleton & Co., had a letter published on 20 October 1871, p. 10 (see also Seville 2006, p. 200 and n. 166).
4
British printing costs were lower than US printing costs at this period; many US publishers were in favour of an international copyright treaty on condition that it covered only works wholly manufactured in the US (Seville 2006, pp. 199–201).
5
For the full list of signatories, see the Daily News, 6 May 1872, p. 6; CD, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, Thomas Carlyle, George Henry Lewes, John Lubbock, John Stuart Mill, and John Tyndall were among them. What is probably an interim printed version of the memorial, containing twenty-nine printed signatures and CD’s handwritten signature, was advertised for sale by Pickering & Chatto of New Bond Street, London, in their Bulletin 35 (March 2012).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8294F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8294F