Even though Sir Walter Scott’s final two novels, The Siege Of Malta and the incomplete Bizarro, were kept under wraps by his family for fear of sullying his literary reputation (the author had suffered three strokes by then), University of Edinburgh Press has published them, corrected and in a single volume, leading to accusations of “grave robbing.” Paul Scott, who published a book based on Scott’s journals, was surprised to learn their wishes had been overturned, said: “Scott’s health deteriorated quite markedly and you can see that from his journal. It starts off as a very intelligent, very well written […]
Authors
Steinbeck Copyright Battle Now in Penguin's Favor
The long-running battle over control of John Steinbeck’s estate, and specifically the copyrights to early works such as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, has shifted once again. Reversing a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen that awarded the copyrights to Steinbeck’s son Thomas and granddaughter Blake Smyle, the 2nd Circuit of the Federal Court of Appeals ruled that Penguin, along with the estate of Steinbeck’s third wife Elaine, hold the rights on the grounds that a 1938 notice purporting to terminate publication rights was superceded by a 1994 agreement. “Because the termination right provided […]
The Pros and Cons of Newsworthy Books
On the one hand, when a book like Ron Suskind’s The Way of the World or Jonathan Mahler’s The Challenge is published with juicy details or inadvertently timed to a breaking story, it gets them a great deal of attention and keeps them in the news cycle. But as the Observer’s Leon Neyfakh discovers, the other hand contains a double-edged sword – one where the meat of the book can get lost underneath a news break’s tidal wave. “Copies may sell, of course. But the seriousness of the project, and the commitment of the undertaking, will be forever eclipsed.“ Take […]
Dual Bonobo Cover Mystery Solved
For those who might have wondered why the covers of two recently published books by Francis Levy and Susan Squire featured the same photograph of amorous bonobos, the Observer has your answer. Turns out the photo, featured in a New Yorker article by Ian Parker, was taken by primatologist Frans de Waal – and when both Squire and Levy saw the photo, both asked permission to use it. “I received emails about this cover from both authors or publishers in the same week,” de Waal. “I am not a photo agency, but a busy scientist, so [I] don’t keep very […]
Plumly's Keats Obsession
The Washington Post’s Bob Thompson has a long profile of Stanley Plumly and his new book Posthumous Keats, three decades in the making and survivor of a publisher switch, an ended marriage and doubts he wouldn’t finish. Thompson writes: “He sometimes felt like Sisyphus, watching the damn rock roll endlessly back down the hill. But there were other times, Plumly says, when communing with the author of “Ode to a Nightingale” made him feel ‘at least twice alive.'”WaPo
Censorship Cry Against Muslim Writers Award
Max Malik was one of five writers shortlisted for the Muslim Writers Award (and last year’s winner) but he claims in the Telegraph that the book The Butterfly Hunter “was never given to the judges to read” to appease parts of the Muslim community. He said: “My creative effort is being treated as if it is somehow unclean and unworthy. Clearly, the Muslim Writers Awards has decided that the novel is so unpalatable for them that it needs to be buried.” Imran Akram, chief executive of the 2008 awards, countered: “Dr Malik’s submission was certainly one of the best we […]