The British Publishing Industry in the Nineteenth Century

This volume brings together documents that illustrate the changing relations between authors and publishers in the period, and the impact of copyright reform and debates over intellectual property on markets and publishing practices. The enormous expansion in the scale and variety of the marketplace for print after 1815 provided new opportunities for authors and prompted debates over intellectual property and the working relations between authors and publishers. The volume documents the impact of these changes on the publishing industry and its markets, focusing on key moments such as the emergence of the professional literary agent in the late 1870s and the formation of the Incorporated Society of Authors in 1883. It documents in detail key source material related to copyright and intellectual property, which were major battle grounds affecting nineteenth-century textual circulation, author-publisher relations, financial sustainability, competitiveness in international markets and industrial relations. The British publishing industry's attempts to control piracy and unrestricted circulation of their titles in the US and elsewhere found expression in a number of pressure campaigns, formal government commissions, legal acts, and contributions to public debate through journal articles, pamphlets, speeches and newspaper accounts.

The volume illustrates key moments captured in contemporary documents including the Copyright Acts of 1814, 1842, 1844, 1886, 1906 and 1911, Parliamentary Royal Commission sessions from 1878 and 1899; articles and reports from contemporary newspaper and periodical sources; official publications of the Society of Authors; and extracts from contemporary books on authorship, including autobiographies.