PREFACE.


At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication of these
letters, the important case of authors _versus_ readers--makers of books
_versus_ consumers of facts and ideas--had for several years been again
on trial in the high court of the people. But few years previously the
same plaintiffs had obtained a verdict giving large extension of _time_ to
the monopoly privileges they had so long enjoyed. Not content therewith,
they now claimed greater _space_, desiring to have those privileges so
extended as to include within their domain the vast population of the
British Empire. To that hour no one had appeared before the court on the
part of the defendants, prepared seriously to question the plaintiffs'
assertion to the effect that literary property stood on the same precise
footing, and as much demanded perpetual and universal recognition, as
property in a house, a mine, a farm, or a ship. As a consequence of
failure in this respect there prevailed, and most especially throughout
the Eastern States, a general impression that there was really but one
side to the question; that the cause of the plaintiffs was that of truth;
that in the past might had triumphed over right; that, however doubtful
might be the expediency of making a decree to that effect, there could be
little doubt that justice would thereby be done; and that, while rejecting
as wholly _inexpedient_ the idea of perpetuity, there could be but slight
objection to so far recognizing that of universality as to grant to
British authors the same privileges that thus far had been accorded to our
own.

Throughout those years, nevertheless, the effort to obtain from the
legislative authority a decree to that effect had proved an utter failure.
Time and again had the case been up for trial, but as often had the