A fortnight back, on the day on which the President signed the Bill, I cabled the report to the Comptroller-General that books by British authors issued during the war period would be protected in America as soon as the British authorities were prepared to grant reciprocal protection. I hope to hear that prompt measures have been taken to such effect. Lord Askwith has, I may mention, interested himself in the matter and will, I understand, take prompt action to initiate the necessary legislation.
I can but think that those who are critical of the present status of the American copyright law should understand that the unsatisfactory provisions in the law do not represent the opinion of the American people, but the disproportioned influence of the manufacturing unions. It would be in order also to give some measure of appreciation to the American publishers and authors who have for many years been doing what was in their power to secure adequate recognition for literary property on both sides of the Atlantic.—Yours, etc.,
Geo. Haven Putnam.
The American Publishers' Copyright League,
Office of the Secretary, 2 West 45th Street, New York, January 3rd.
[Major Putnam's news, which we briefly recorded in our Editorial Notes last month, is excellent hearing. In congratulating him on his work in connection with copyright we must also mention the Authors' League of America and our own Authors' Society, with their respective indefatigable secretaries, Mr. Eric Schuler and Mr. G. Herbert Thring.—Editor.]
MR. STURGE MOORE AND FLAUBERT
(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—In the review of Mr. W. K. Seymour's Miscellany of Poetry—1919 (London Mercury, February) the best thing in the book is said to be "a long epistle by Mr. Sturge Moore, which contains pictures as clean-cut and vivid as those which made his Micah so peculiarly rich a poem." This is, of course, a very just remark, but it is a curious thing about Micah that the particular piece of imagery which struck one reader at any rate can be paralleled almost verbatim from Salammbo. I intend no discourtesy to Mr. Sturge Moore when I say that I consider the parallel should have been acknowledged in the text. He has written much about Flaubert and much also about the virtues of joint authorship, and I think nothing but praise for what is apparently a verse translation in Micah would have resulted from the acknowledgment. As the matter stands it seems that an explanation of some sort is wanting, and I suggest that when Micah is published in a collection of Mr. Moore's poetry the point should surely not be overlooked.
The following are the lines referred to: