Dickens, Charles

Autograph letter signed ("Charles Dickens"), 2 pages (7 x 4 3/8 in.; 179 x 112 mm) on a bifolium of blue paper, Tavistock House, 3 January 1854, to Sir James Emerson Tennent; formerly inlaid with mounting remnant on verso of second leaf. Oatmeal buckram portfolio.

The Letters of Charles Dickens, Pilgrim Ed., 7:236–37 (text from an old catalogue description and lacking the second paragraph)

Writing to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, Dickens endorses suggested amendments to a proposed Anglo-American Copyright Treaty. "I have read the draught of the article on the proposed treaty of Copyright with America, designed to be substituted for the sixth article of the convention; and I consider it decidedly advantageous to English Authors, and can have no doubt of their generally receiving it in that light. I may be supposed to have a considerable interest in the question, and I am satisfied with it myself. On principle I object to any limitation whatever of an author's right in his own works; but, as the law of England confiscates his property when his successors most need it, I have no right to quarrel with America for requiring him to establishing his title to it within three months.

"The provisions as to the stereotyping or printing of a book taking place in the country in which it is republished, being reciprocal, does not seem unreasonable or unfair. I have mentioned this point to my printers Messrs. Bradbury and Evans of Whitefriars, who are in a very large way of business as printers of books; and they concur with me in this opinion."