Clemens and Copyright

Clemens sought to protect his carefully cultivated brand by controlling the use of his name and writing. Without the protection of modern copyright law, Twain’s popular books were often reprinted without his consent. Clemens responded by challenging, combating, and lampooning literary piracy throughout his career.

Mark Twain. The New Pilgrim’s Progress. A Book of Travel in Pursuit of Pleasure: The Journey Home. London: John Camden Hotten, [1870]. 

London publisher John Camden Hotten exploited the lack of an international copyright treaty to issue pirated editions of many popular American authors. Less than a year after The Innocents Abroad’s first publication, Hotten produced his own unauthorized edition, splitting the text into two volumes: Hotten’s Innocents Abroad contained only the first half of Twain’s text, while The New Pilgrim’s Progress carried the remainder. 

Mark Twain. Autobiography, (Burlesque.) First Romance, and Memoranda. Toronto: James Campbell & Son, [1871?].  

This unauthorized collection of Twain sketches features on its cover Twain’s caricature of William III of Prussia. Following the publication of this volume, Twain took action to better protect his copyright in England and Canada, leading to a five-year lull in Canadian piracy of his work before the Canadian Copyright Act of 1875, which separated Canada from imperial copyright agreements and enabled a second major phase of unauthorized editions. The eponymous “autobiography” is an entirely fictional account that originally appeared in his “Memoranda” for the Galaxy. 

Samuel L. Clemens. Autograph letter signed “Samuel L. Clemens” to an unidentified Boston publisher. Hartford, June 21, [1875].  

Clemens thanks the unidentified Bostonian for alerting him to the piratical aims of a man named Greer. He advises the publisher that “all of my stuff is amply protected, + none of it is for sale.” On the same day as this letter, he made good on his promise to “expose this filthy thief” by writing a brief letter about the matter to the Hartford Courant. 

Mark Twain. Mark Twain’s Sketches. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1872. Copyright edition. 

Twain edited the amusing sketches in these collections to soften the language from their original American serial publication so that they would be more suitable for British audiences. Labeled “Copyright edition,” this volume was produced specifically to secure Clemens’s copyright over the material it contained. This utilitarian aim explains its cheap production, evidenced by the poor condition of most surviving copies. 

Mark Twain. The Choice Humorous Works of Mark Twain. London: John Camden Hotten, [1873].

This hardcover collection gathers both volumes of Hotten’s pirated Innocents Abroad back under a single cover, to which is appended an unauthorized collection of sketches. Twain despised Hotten for his success at piracy, and was particularly furious with Hotten’s tactic of appending additional chapters to the works he pirated. In a letter to the London Spectator, he inveighed: “How would you like to have John Camden Hotten sit down & stimulate his powers, & drool two or three original chapters on to the end of that book? Would not the world seem cold & hollow to you? Would you not feel that you wanted to die & be at rest? Little the world knows of true suffering.”

Mark Twain. The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages. Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1881. Copyright edition. 

For much of the nineteenth century there was no international copyright agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States. American literature was often pirated by publishers in the United Kingdom and its territory Canada, from which it could easily be resold at lower prices in the United States. Clemens attempted to circumvent these pirates by establishing separate American and British copyright. This edition of The Prince and the Pauper, labeled “Copyright Edition,” was explicitly produced to forestall piracy by establishing a copyright that would hold in Canada. 

Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens). Mark Twain’s Complete Works. Toronto: John Ross Robertson, [1882]. 

This crudely printed volume collects several of the unauthorized editions of Twain’s works issued by Canadian publisher John Ross Robertson. Robertson used various legal means to circumvent international copyright: for this volume, he printed the sheets in the United States, imported them to Canada for binding, and then exported the completed books back over the border for American sale. This elaborate scheme violated the spirit of copyright, but was entirely legal at the time, and the books— boldly marketed as “Robertson’s Cheap Series”— were sold at a fraction of the price of the authorized editions. This volume, containing Robertson’s editions of Innocents Abroad, A Tramp Abroad, and a variety of Sketches, represents the earliest attempt to gather together a version of Twain’s complete works.