2. Copyright Law, Authorial Ownership, and Adaptation Between Novels and Plays in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Presumption! or, The Fate of Frankenstein, credited as the first dramatisation of Shelley’s novel, opened in July 1823. Philip Cox describes Peake as a “a commercially inspired popular playwright who aspires to no more than simple Gothic thrills,” sacrificing the intellectual rigour of the story for its elements of pleasurable horror (2000, 165). Douglas William Hoehn (1979) discusses this production in his essay “The first season of Presumption! or, The Fate of Frankenstein”.

The playbill marketed the dramatisation as “a new ROMANCE of a peculiar interest.” Three significant changes had been made to the plot: “The stage Monster does not speak, and has the mind of an infant. Frankenstein confesses his religious remorse to the audience, ‘Oh that I could recall my impious labour, or suddenly extinguish the spark that I have so presumptuously bestowed.’ And a comic servant, Fritz, is introduced as Frankenstein’s assistant, to reinforce the moral by his fearful talk of raising the Devil” (Butler 2008, xlix). For discussions of other stage and screen adaptations, see Albert J. Lavalley (1982); Graham Allen (2008); Steven Earl Forry (1990); Lester D. Friedman and Allison Kavey (2016); Diane Long Hoeveler (2016); and Mark Jancovich (2016). For information on the first film adaptation in 1910, see Frederick Wiebel (2010). A wider look at the intertextual afterlife of Frankenstein in popular culture can be found in an edited collection by Dennis R. Cutchins and Dennis R. Perry (2018).

The first edition of Frankenstein had been published anonymously, whereas the second publication credited Shelley (August 1823). Shelley wrote to Hunt: “On[] the strength of the drama my father had published for my benefit a new edition of F.” (379). Charles E. Robinson (2016) and St Clair (2003) discuss the publications and copyright issues.

St Clair chronologically lists the book’s various republications in relation to the main stage and film adaptations, arguing that they “conferr[ed] publicity and customers on one another” (2003, 51–53; 57–63). Other critics have similarly argued for the enduring (and often unacknowledged) influence some of the nineteenth-century theatrical adaptations have as “culture-texts” on the collective consciousness, even surpassing the sources text via their cultural afterlife (see, for example, Miller 2017; Szwydky 2020).

Both versions are in circulation today. Oxford World’s Classics publishes the 1818 version; Penguin Classics, the 1831 edition.

Understanding that no work is absolutely original, I also do not use the term ‘original’ in any absolute sense, but according to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century conventions that invoked it to contrast an adapted work with its adaptation.

Deborah Vlock (1998) and others have argued and illustrated how heavily prose writers were indebted to the theatre, for example via the example of Dickens.

See Mark Rose (1993) and Laura Rosenthal (1996) for accounts of copyright and literary authorship in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and Lyman Ray Patterson (1968) for information on copyright law pre-1800 through to the nineteenth century. For nineteenth-century accounts that address the struggles of publication and copyright for dramatists, see John Russell Stephens (1992). General histories of nineteenth-century copyright law were written by contemporaries Walter Arthur Copinger (1870), Thomas Edward Scrutton (1903), and Richard Rogers Bowker (1912); for a retrospective view on copyright law, see William Cornish (2010), Catherine Seville (1999, 2006) and Isabella Alexander (2010). For a wider historical overview of authorship, national, and international copyright, see David Saunders (1992), Christopher May and Susan Sell (2006), and Ronan Deazley et al. (2010).

The collected essays by Jordan and Patten (1995) provide a substantial overview of these publishing practices by discussing the marketplace with regard to printing, reading, and readership. Alexis Weedon (2003) offers a historical overview of the development of the publishing trade from 1836–1916, including insights into individual publishing houses and case studies of popular fiction. Mary Hammond (2017) discusses readership and publishing in view of social, cultural and economic changes to market stratifications as well as the emergence of new literary forms from 1880–1914.

Rose (1993) discusses landmark court cases regarding intellectual ownership such as Pope v. Curll in 1741 and Donaldson v. Becket in 1774.

Seville (2010b) assesses the impact of the Statute both in terms of copyright reforms and wider issues in the nineteenth century.

Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd was a writer and a judge who championed copyright law and presented the bill to Parliament. Charles Dickens dedicated The Pickwick Papers (1837) to him.

The benefit for the publisher emerges in the case of Frankenstein. As its copyright period expired in 1880, reprinting was cheap, so that in the first year of its reprint, it sold more copies than all the previous editions put together (St Clair 2003, 49).

No Name was published in the weekly literary magazine All Year Round (1859–95), founded, owned, and edited by Charles Dickens, replacing Household Words (1850–9).

Another example is Collins’s short novel The New Magdalen, serialised in Temple Bar from October 1872, and published in novel form by Bentley the day after its premiere at the Olympic Theatre on 20 May 1873, an adaptation that Collins had also written.

Collins’s letter was written to fellow writer Hall Caine (1853–1931). Although not widely known today, Caine was a bestselling author in his day, who heavily invested himself in publishing practices and matters of copyright, for example, by representing the Society of Authors in the copyright negotiations with the United States and Canada in 1895. In addition, he also adapted his own work across media to both theatre and film, as well as writing original plays and at least one original screenplay (Darby and Joan in 1919). Mary Hammond (2004) argues for the need to re-evaluate Caine and his work, especially in view of the cross-references between literature, theatre, and film and other historical insights into the period. Phillip Waller (2006, 726–766) discusses Caine with regard to his popularity and wider literary practices, including his self-promotion, and the criticism he received from his contemporaries. Vivien Allen (1997) provides an expansive biographical account.

Maunder (2013) discusses the impact of censorship, critics, and moralists on stage adaptations, especially those of popular sensation novels. John Russell Stephens (1980) provides a wider study of Victorian dramatic censorship and the cultural and social attitudes within society.

Seville (1999) provides historical background to the formation of the bill.

The Lord Chamberlain’s Play Collection contains manuscript copies of plays performed 1824–1968, both licensed and unlicensed. The collection is available at the British Library.

Statutory protection only applied to Britain. If the play was published abroad, for example, in America, which did not have a copyright agreement with Britain until 1891, then the work had no statutory protection (see Miller 2012). This caused considerable transatlantic friction between writers, publishers, theatres, courts, and the press. See Seville (2010a) on nineteenth-century British and American international copyright relations.

The countries represented in the Berne Convention were Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Tunis, and Haiti. The protection extended to their colonies, spreading it across the globe.

Discussed further in Chap. 3, this is an extract from an anonymously published manual for aspiring playwrights credited to ‘A. Dramatist’. Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) has been identified as its possible author within biographical studies (see Joseph Connolly 1982, 78 and Ruth Marie Faurot 1974, 100), as well as within wider critical theatrical studies (see Jackson 1989, 336 and Karen Morash 2022, 364). Jerome’s 1926 autobiography does not refer to the manual, yet chronicles his dramatic and prose writing, including non-fiction writings such as “On the Stage—and Off” (1885), “Trials of a Dramatist” (1925), and “Chronicles of a Playwright” (1925), along with wider social and cultural issues during these times.

The United States did not join the Berne agreement until 1986. For further information on this and nineteenth-century American copyright law, see Saunders (1992, 149–66) and Seville (2006, 146–252). Oren Bracha (2016), while discussing the development from 1672–1909, shows that America’s copyright law was shaped by British and colonial copyright traditions. American copyright law becomes relevant to this study when British authors become involved in film adaptations, discussed in Chap. 4.

Rose (1993) discusses Defoe, Fielding, and Richardson’s advocacy for authorial rights in the eighteenth century. Poets joined prose and dramatic writers in defending authorial ownership of copyright: William Wordsworth, for example, was a fierce advocate of perpetual copyright (see Seville 1999 for his influence on the 1842 Copyright Act); Thomas Hood wrote public letters in 1837 entitled “Copyright and Copywrong”; Matthew Arnold wrote several essays on copyright in nineteenth century culture and society (see Saunders 1992, 122–5). Victor Hugo championed literary property rights and became president of the International Literary Association in 1878, forging the way for the Berne Convention (Seville 2006, 60).

Although Disraeli’s work was not widely adapted to the stage, he suffered from the lack of international copyright law: for example, the piracy of his 1870 novel Lothair in Canada. Petitioned by the newly formed Association to Protect the Rights of Authors, Disraeli’s government appointed a Royal Commission in 1875 to look into national and international copyright law, although a Bill was never passed, and the issue was side-lined by the new government in 1880 (see Isabella Alexander 2010, 119–47). Records of the Parliamentary Debates surrounding Talfourd’s 1837 Copyright Bill, which led to the 1842 Act, also show Disraeli’s support for authors’ rights (14 December 1837), as does his signature on the 1837 Petition of British Authors to the United States Congress for exclusive rights to their own work within that country.

See, for example, Lauriat (2009); Sarah Meer (2015); Robert Macfarlane (2007, 130–57).

In “Regulatory Bodies: Dramatic Creativity, Control and Commodity of Lady Audley’s Secret,” Kate Mattacks discusses some of the stage adaptations and their female performances as commodities, even going so far as to argue that the theatre’s remediation of the text uses the figure of Lady Audley as a metaphor for the theatre copyright and licensing at that time: “The bodily containment of the performative heroine with the strictures of feminine roles and, ultimately, within the confines of an asylum, reflected the regulatory processes of copyright and licensing and their dramatic effect on creativity” (2009, 5).

Braddon was more a nominal than an actual editor for the magazine, owned by her partner John Maxwell, from 1866–76. Cheltenham did most of the “real” editing work, according to Jennifer Carnell, who discusses Braddon’s involvement with the magazine further (2000, 174–6).

Looking at the law report, the newspaper report, and the court record, Ayelet Ben-Yishai discusses this case from a legal point of view in Common Precedents: The Presentness of the Past in Victorian Law and Fiction (2015, 44–9). Surprisingly, despite the prominence and significance of the Tinsley v. Lacy case, Carnell fails to mention it in Braddon’s biography.

Lacy was a prominent figure in theatre, adaptation, and publishing, engaging with several authors treated in this chapter: for example, he was involved in adapting some of Charles Dickens’s works to the stage: firstly, unauthorised ones, but later, authorised ones. Fitz-Gerald (1910), among others, discusses their relationship. Lacy also received an injunction for publishing one of Charles Reade’s novels as a drama nearly verbatim in 1861 (see Stephens 1992, 99 and Alexander 2010, 221).

Popular play scripts were often published in collections, such as Lacy’s Acting Edition of Victorian Plays (1848–73). Lacy’s collection appeared in four volumes annually, each containing around fifteen plays. A digital archive of these had been created by Richard Pearson in 2007 as part of the “The Victorian Plays Project”, though sadly this appears to be no longer accessible.

Lady Audley’s Secret: A Drama in Two Acts and Aurora Floyd: A Drama in Two Acts by William Suter (Sensation Press, 2008). Both editions feature an introduction by Braddon bibliographer Jennifer Carnell, explaining their contexts.

Seebohm, despite having the law on his side, went to great lengths to get Burnett’s approval for the adaptation, including travelling to see her in Florence. However, Ann Thwaite states that Seebohm “lost any sympathy” he had when he claimed that his play was only “suggested” by Burnett’s book, despite the “plot, characters and dialogue” having “all been lifted bodily” (1974, 110).

According to Kerry Powell (1997, 120), the script cancellation order appears to have been carried out, as there is no known surviving copy and it is missing from the Lord Chamberlain’s record.

The Incorporated Society of Authors had been founded in 1884 by Walter Besant for authors to collectively band together to further their own interests in view of exploitative publishing practices and the insufficient rights regarding copyright and ownership, amongst others. By 1886, the Society had 153 members, with membership rapidly increasing, so that by that by 1912 there were over 2000 members, which was after the Copyright Act of 1911 had come into force. The majority of writers discussed in this study became a part of the Society, which still continues to this day. Richard Salmon (2019) explores the aims of Besant and the Society further, also as part of a wider Leverhulme funded project into the History of the Society of Authors 1884–1914 (2020–2024).

After Burnett’s death on 29 October 1924, The Times obituary credited the 1911 Copyright Act as the “natural consequence” of her 1888 court action (30 Oct. 1924, 16).

Paul Schlicke (1988) and Grahame Smith (1993, 2003), for example, have documented Dickens’s enthusiasm for popular entertainment, despite his contempt for adaptive piracy.

The proposal had been made to Frederick Yates, but nothing came of it. In the meantime, between March and December 1838, five unauthorised adaptations of Oliver appeared (see Slater 2009, 121).

Stirling later adapted A Christmas Carol to the stage in 1844, which, according to the playbill, was “the only dramatic version sanctioned by C. Dickens.” Stirling relates how Dickens even attended rehearsals, where he provided “valuable suggestions” (see Fitz-Gerald 1910, 186–90).

This had also occurred during the 1836–7 serialisation of The Pickwick Papers in, among others, adaptations by Stirling and Moncrieff (see Fitz-Gerald 1910, 73–96). In the playbill to Moncrieff’s adaptation, the “Adaptor” includes a deferential disclaimer that he was able to “bring Mr. Pickwick’s affairs to a conclusion rather sooner than his gifted biographer has done, if not so satisfactorily as could be wished, at all events quite legally.” Schlicke estimates that there were at least seven Pickwick adaptations staged before the serial had finished its run (1988, 33).

Moncrieff’s address to the Committee is discussed further in Chap. 3.

He related to the Committee how one of his own pieces was taken without his consent from a minor theatre and played at Drury Lane, despite his objection against its suitability for the “legitimate boards” (1836, 175). Moncrieff, assured that the law was on his side, was told to apply for an injunction against the performance; yet, as he could not afford the £80 fee to hire a lawyer, he was unable to prevent the play being staged. He complained that he did not receive any remuneration for the play, despite it making “a great deal of money.” Nevertheless, Moncrieff was subsequently employed and well paid to produce other works by Drury Lane for three years, before a disagreement ended his engagement. Despite the injustice of having his work performed without his consent and unable to prosecute in court due to financial limitations, Moncrieff still worked for those who had wronged him, illustrating how dependent dramatists were on those who mistreated them for employment. Fitz-Gerald, in his study on Dickens, refers to possibly the same incident, stating that in 1829 Moncrieff prosecuted a “fellow-conspirator for selling the copyright of one of his own unauthorised dramatisations of another man’s work”, yet he shows little sympathy by nominating the unnamed adapter as “fellow-conspirator.” Although it is not entirely clear to which incident Fitz-Gerald refers, it could relate to another dramatisation or unauthorised publication of Moncrieff’s Giovanni in London (1819).

There are numerous accounts detailing the disagreement between Moncrieff and Dickens, with varying foci: see, for example, Cox (2000, 126–56), who also criticises the mistreatment of Moncrieff by Dickens and his friends; see also, Patten 2012, 204–5; Karen E. Laird 2015, 78–9; Renata Kobetts Miller (2017).

An incident in Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) also creates an allegory for the theft of intellectual property: the dispute between Martin and his former master, who claims ownership over the architectural plans of the building that Martin had designed via a technicality—his idea of adding four windows (see Adams 2011, 228).

Lissette Lopez Szwydky also addresses Nickleby’s dialogue, describing it as a “metafictional, mimetic moment” in view of Dickens inserting himself into his own storyworld and thereby positioning himself within the adaptation industry surrounding him (2020, 146/7). Karen E. Laird in references to this dialogue points out that it is important to remember that “Dickens voiced this anger at the very start of his career, when his footing in the literary world was not yet secure” (2015, 79).

The letter and exchange between Moncrieff and Dickens is discussed further in Chap. 3 in terms of its social implications towards the profession of dramatic authorship.

Patten suggests that, by the end of the serialisation, there were at least 25 unauthorised adaptations in non-patent theatres and in the provinces (2012, 204).

Moncrieff had anticipated that Smike was Ralph’s son, but had made his mother a relation of Sir Mulberry (Slater 2009, 134).

International copyright was an especially contentious topic for British and American authors, who actively petitioned for international agreements and formed alliances to do so (see Seville 2006, 146–253).

Laurel Brake and Julie F. Codell (2005) address the Victorian press as a place for debate between editors, authors and readers; Alexis Easley also discusses the relationship of the Victorian press with authors, particularly with regard to gender and the different treatment given to female authors, with examples including Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Marie Corelli (2013, 137–155).

Graham Law (2007) gives a comparative assessment of both articles, arguing that Collins continued to protest the lack of legal protection for novelists from adaptation after Dickens’s death in 1870.

This extract is from his aforementioned letter to Reade written in 1869.

This article with annotations is also reprinted in an edited collection of Collins’s Collected Letters (see Gasson et al. 2005).

Hatton and Mathison dramatised other Burnett novels. In 1879, their play Loved and Lost was based on Burnett’s Haworth’s (1879). Haworth’s became a test case for international copyright law. Her English publisher Macmillan informed her that, “some publishers in London contemplate reprinting Haworth’s for the purpose of testing how far an American author’s books can be protected in England. We are of course sorry that any book of ours should be chosen for a test[,] as we are peaceable people and don’t like lawsuits but, if we find ourselves being robbed, we shall do what we can to protect ourselves.” According to the law, Burnett was advised to be within British dominion on the day of publication (Thwaite 60). The uncertainty regarding international copyright, then, led to the law being trialled in the courts in these and other ways.

“Joan” was the name of the titular Lass in Burnett’s novel. Hatton’s adaptation was entitled “Liz, or, that Lass O′ Lowrie’s” (Bolton 2000, 106–7). Both “Liz” and “Joan” were characters in the original novel. In Hatton’s version, Thwaite points out that “Joan” in the book is now called “Liz” in the play, with Liz as “the poor wronged girl with the bastard child” in the book being “obviously considered too strong meat for the stage” (1974, 61).

Derek Miller (2012) provides an overview of American copyright law and British novelists staging adaptations. For more information on American literary law and the internationalisation of copyright, see also Saunders (1992, 149–87).

There are varying reports of Reade’s involvement with that adaptation. Thwaite states that Reade received remuneration of “just £20” for his dramatisation which he gave to Burnett, further sending her paper documentation for that payment to verify that he was “punctilious in dealing with that gifted woman [Burnett] and her rights” (1974, 62).

Her own subsequent dramatisation (autumn 1878 in New York), co-written by Julian Magnus, did not receive much financial or critical acclaim (Gerzina 2004, 74).

Tree was an early participant in film, involved in the first filmed Shakespeare play, King John (1899), and three other early Shakespearian adaptations: The Tempest (1905), Henry VIII (1911), and Macbeth (1916), all of which are lost. Discussing the one-minute film of King John, of which only one of four scenes has survived, Luke McKernan (2000) argues that film was utilised to enhance theatre and showcase stage performance rather than develop film art.

Although not well received in London, Leanne Waters (2021) states that Berton and Woodgate’s stage adaptation was a hit during its tour of the provinces, as she provides a further review and close study of the melodramatic aesthetics of their play.

Ransom recounts occasions when Corelli and the popular press were opposed. Corelli, against her publishers’ will, published The Sorrows of Satan without distributing customary free review copies to the press. Instead, she inserted a notice on the first page, proclaiming, “NO COPIES OF THIS BOOK ARE SENT OUT FOR REVIEW. Members of the press will therefore obtain it (should they wish to do so) in the usual way with the rest of the public, i.e., through the Booksellers and the Libraries” (1999, 81; emphasis in original). See Mary Hammond (2017, 117–154) and Philip Waller (2006, 142–148; 116–174) for further discussions of Corelli’s relationship within the publishing world, as well as with critics and reviewer.

Perhaps unintentionally fitting in terms of its caption “my work!”, this theatrical poster is assumed to be from the first American production that opened in December 1898. Bolton catalogues 73 versions between 1896 and 1909 (2000, 116–22).

Stephens and Miller suggest that “copyright performances” were a consequence of transatlantic copyright issues and credit their emergence to Dion Boucicault, but they differ on the date of origin, with Stephens dating them back to 1861 (1992, 105) and Miller to 1876, although their first mention in print was not until 1884 (2012, 164–6).

Discussing The Master-Christian (1900) and Temporal Power (1902), Philip Waller observes that they were never performed commercially (2006, 787–8).

One of the reviews noted up-front that “Mrs Burnett has written some charming books, but she certainly knows but little about dramatic construction.” (The Theatre 1889, 90). Phyllis had previously been serialised in America as The Fortunes of Philipa Fairfax in Peterson’s Magazine in 1877. The original title was kept for the 1889 publication of the book, yet it is not clear whether this was related to the publicity surrounding the copyright performance.

Carnell compares the source and adaptation (2000, 214–19). Emily Allen analyses both culturally, arguing that Braddon wrote “against Flaubert and against the critics” by composing an “antisensational sensation novel” (2003, 24; 135–69). Robert Lee Wolff (1979) discusses this and other claims of piracy against Braddon.

Braddon used pseudonyms throughout her professional life, starting her theatrical career as “Mary Seyton,” publishing poetry and fiction under that name. Much of her work was published anonymously using other pseudonyms such as “Babington White,” explaining the title of Carnell’s bibliography, The Literary Lives of M.E. Braddon (2000).

Miss Winthrop accused Burnett of plagiarism, which the press publicised. On 1 October 1889, the St James’s Gazette outlined 18 similarities between the two stories and continued to review the charge and Burnett’s reaction in later articles (Oct 11th, 14th and 19th).