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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 August 2021
In the 1830's and 1840's members of the editorial staffs of certain American periodicals, not satisfied with the common practice of pirating the works of foreign authors, undertook the brazen expedient of writing their own selections and attaching thereto the name of some eminent foreign author. For example, when the Spirit of the Times had reprinted all of Thackeray's Yellowplush Correspondence available in Fraser's Magazine and had found it popular among the subscribers, the editors stated that they had forged for some time thereafter a continuation of the Correspondence that was as good as the original. “Our Yellowplush succeeded him of London,” confessed the journal, “and his letters were considered, in all respects, equal to those of his ‘illustrious predecessor’.” Moreover, this pseudo-continuation was pirated by at least one American periodical in Tennessee which obviously did not know that it was being gulled. The Spirit of the Times regarded the incident with amused indifference rather than indignation, not being in a position to claim copyright protection for a work which it had not called its own.
1 ... a Chronicle of the Turfy, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage, founded 10 Dec. 1831 by William Trotter Porter. It is said to have been “the first all-round sporting journal in the United States.” See F. L. Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741-1850 (New York, 1930), i, 480. Porter was conducting the journal at the time of the alleged Thackeray forgery. In 1842 John Richards became the proprietor, but Porter remained with the journal as associate editor until he founded a rival paper titled Porter's Spirit of the Times, which is sometimes confused with the original Spirit. “The circulation of the Spirit is said to have extended to England, India, and Australia.” See DAB, s.v. “Porter, William Trotter,” article by Nelson F. Adkins.
2 Nov. 1837-Aug. 1838, Jan. 1840.
3 Spirit, x (14 Mar. 1840), 13.
4 The discovery of this Thackeray piracy is significant because it indicates that, contrary to opinion, Thackeray attracted the attention of the American periodicals ten years before the publication of Vanity Fair (1848); that he was popular enough in America as a periodical writer to be pirated not merely in book form but in a journal; and that since he appeared in the very popular Spirit, he must have been well known as a periodical writer by a wide circle of American readers in 1838. Contrast M. E. Walker, “W. M. Thackeray's Reputation in American Periodicals, 1829-1880,” Univ. of Ill. M.A. Thesis (1937), iii, 1-3.
5 For an account of the New-Yorker, see Mott, i, 358-359, and Don C. Seitz, Horace Greeley (Indianapolis, 1926), Chapters 3 and 4.
6 For an account of the New York Mirror, see Mott, i, 320-330. At this time, the Mirror was being published by George Pope Morris and edited by Charles Fenno Hoffman. The “conclusion” to Maltravers was published as Bk. x, in 5 chapters, Saturday, 9 Dec. 1837 (xv, 185-186). This conclusion was preceded by a brief communication to the editor, dated 27 Nov. 1837, and signed “W.H.W.” In the letter, W.H.W. expressed his belief that no other copy of the conclusion existed in the United States. Therefore “Messrs. Harper and Brothers, not owning the copyright of this work, cannot reasonably complain if you should give immediate publicity to this tenth and last book of Ernest Maltravers.”
7 New-Yorker, iv (16 Dec. 1837), 609; (30 Dec.), 653.
8 New-Yorker (17 Mar. 1838), 830.
9 For a description of the difficulties encountered by first-class American publishers in issuing American editions of foreign works, see J. Henry Harper, The House of Harper (New York, 1912), pp. 110-118; Amer. Lit. Gazette, ix (15 May 1867), 36-37, and ix (1 June 1867), 68-69.
10 Spirit, x (14 Mar. 1840), 13, comments in detail on this practice.
11 Ix (29 Feb. 1840), 613.
12 The New World subsequently denied that the fifty dollars was offered for Marmaduke, but maintained it was for the first number of Dickens' Master Humphrey's Clock. See the New World, i, xxii (21 Mar. 1840), folio edition under “L'Envoi.”
13 Quoted from the Signal in the Spirit, ix (29 Feb. 1840), 613.
14 The Boston Notion, published by George Roberts, boasted of being the largest newspaper in the world. The regular issue was a folio about four feet square. In addition, there were an occasional Double Notion, nearly twice the size of the regular Notion, and an occasional Quadruple Notion. None of the leaves were cut, and the Quadruple issue was so large that to unfold it taxed the height of a tall man standing on a table, according to the Notion's own pictorial illustration.
15 Quoted from the Notion by the Spirit, x (14 Mar. 1840), 13.
16 An account of this incident is quoted from the Signal for Thursday, 12 Mar. 1840, in the Spirit, x (14 Mar. 1840), 13.
17 New World, i, xxii, under “L'Envoi.” Sketches of Young Couples, published by Chapman and Hall in 1840, was announced as by the author of Sketches of Young Gentlemen.
18 Dickens' Village Coquettes was published by Bentley in 1837, three years before the New World reprinted it.
19 Senate Document No. 323 (15 June 1842), 3.