Re: Your Opinions regarding many festivals

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Tue, 8 Jul 1997 15:31:43 -0100 

My Dear Mrs Jones,

  Or is it Miss Nipper?  Little could please me more than the delight you
take in my books.  The pleasure of my readers has ever been for me more
intoxicating than the rarest wine.
  I am aware of festivals in honour of my books, In America, in Great
Britain.  Some programmes, some events, some speakers give me great
pleasure, some less.  But I always rested my claim to the consideration of
posterity on my writings, and I suppose I should be content that they
receive so much attention, without quibbling in some cases about the nature
of the attention.  The fact that speakers do not always agree about the
meaning of my books, that indeed they sometimes flatly contradict each
other, is indication enough, surely, that not all of them represent my own
views.  But no matter.
  Copyright was something I always sought to defend and extend, and I am
glad my labours, together with those of many others more persevering, have
yielded fruit.  But copyright laws now in force profit my family today very
little.  Nor should they.  In Europe at present, copyright persists for
seventy years, from the death or the author, or the first publication of the
work, whichever was the later.  This means, as you will appreciate, that
almost all of my works are now out of copyright.  There are exceptions.
Letters and fragments published only recently, for instance.  And one book,
too, is an exception.  The version of the Gospels I wrote for my children
was first published, to raise money for some members of my family, in 1934.
Until a couple of years ago, in Britain, the copyright period was fifty
years.  This has been extended to seventy, to match Europe.  Consequently,
though "The Life of Our Lord" went out of copyright in 1984, it has now gone
back into copyright until 2004!  The controller of copyright, now, is my
great great grandson, Christopher Dickens.

Faithfully your,


Charles Dickens

======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author