[posted] Re: REPosted (#8875, Strindberg)

[John Mark Ockerbloom]

Did we ever clear up whether this was actually out of copyright?  My archive
of the conversation we had in 2004 doesn't have a record of this point being
settled.

Here's what I said at the time (and the reasons I'm still not listing it
on The Online Books Page):

 > The question is whether the text we have matches the Grove Press
 > 1960 edition (I'll be good money that it does, but did not
 > do a comparison).  Then, whether the Grove Press edition clears
 > under Rule 5 (pre-1989, no copyright notice).  Again, I'll bet
 > good money, but did not check.

Unfortunately, I don't think that would suffice to clear the book.
The Grove Press edition was not the first edition, but is presumably
based on the first edition of 1939.  Since *that* edition appears to have
been first published abroad, it is probably eligible for restored
copyright under the GATT copyright restorations (which covers books
of non-US origin that were published without the proper formalities, such
as copyright notice and renewal.)   And if the 1939 book is now under copyright,
so is Grove's 1960 reprint.

For the 1939 book not to have been restored to copyright, at least one
of these things must be true:

    -- The book was simultaneously (or within 30 days) published in the US
           (but the WorldCat entry for the first edition only says
            "London: J. Cape, 1939")
    -- There was an earlier edition published in the US
           (but WorldCat doesn't show a US edition prior to the 1960 Grove
           edition)
    -- The translator, Graham Rawson, died before 1926, 70 years prior to the
         1996 GATT restorations, or was an American citizen and resident.
         (But the LC authority file equates
          Graham Rawson with Graham Stanhope Rawson, born 1890.  A finding aid at
         http://www.library.rdg.ac.uk/colls/special/rawson.html notes that
         Ivy Marion Enthoven married dramatist Graham Stanhope Rawson in 1930,
         who would appear to be our man, still alive and well then.
         Furthermore, the short bio mentions her work in England during
         the 1920s and 1930s-- and doesn't mention any emigration
         afterwards either-- so he was likely there too.  And we already
         know that his translation was both first performed in London--
         the introduction mentions a London debut in 1937-- and was
         apparently first published in London in 1939.)

Unless one of these propositions can be established, which doesn't look
very likely to me at this point, it would appear that the Gutenberg
translation is still under copyright in the US.

John Mark Ockerbloom

David Widger wrote:
> Corrections have been made in this file and it has been updated with new header, removed from its old address in etext05, and filed under the new directory system. An html file has been provided.
> 
> 
> The Road to Damascus, by August Strindberg                                8875
>   [Subtitle: A Trilogy]
>   [Commentator: Gunnar Ollén]
>   [Translator: Esther Johanson and Graham Rawson]
>   [Link: http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/7/8875 ]
>   [Updated edition of: etext05/7rddm10.txt; 8rddm10.txt; 8rddm10h.htm]
>   [Files: 8875.txt; 8875-8.txt; 8875-h.htm]
> 
> 
> David
>