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DEAR SIR,--Necessarily I cannot assent to so strange a proposition. And
I think it but fair to warn you that if you put the piece on the stage,
you must take the legal consequences.
Yours respectfully,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Before the days of international copyright no American author's
books were pirated more freely by Canadian publishers than those of
Mark Twain. It was always a sore point with him that these books,
cheaply printed, found their way into the United States, and were
sold in competition with his better editions. The law on the
subject seemed to be rather hazy, and its various interpretations
exasperating. In the next unmailed letter Mark Twain relieves
himself to a misguided official. The letter is worth reading today,
if for no other reason, to show the absurdity of copyright
conditions which prevailed at that time.
Unmailed Letter to H. C. Christiancy, on book Piracy:
HARTFORD, Dec. 18, '87.
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