Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)
This text has been superseded by a newly published text
MTPDocEd
To Moncure D. Conway
2 November 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (MS, correspondence card: NNC, UCCL 01386)
(SUPERSEDED)
Hartford, Nov. 2.
slc

My Dear Conway: Belford Bros., Canadian thieves, are flooding America with a cheap pirated edition of Tom Sawyer.1explanatory note I have just telegraphed Chatto to assign Canadian copyright to me, but I suppose it is too late to do any good.2explanatory note We cannot issue for 6 weeks yet, & by that time Belford will have sold 100,000 over the frontier & killed my book dead. This piracy will cost me $10,000, & I will spend as much more to choke off those pirates, if the thing can be done. Ask Chatto if he gave b Belford Bros permsission to publish.3explanatory note

Ever Yours
S. L. C.
Textual Commentary
Previous Publication:

MTLP , 105–6.

Provenance:

The Conway Papers were acquired by NNC sometime after Conway’s death in 1907.

More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.

Explanatory Notes
1 

On or shortly before 29 July 1876, Belford Brothers of Toronto had issued a pirated edition of the English edition of Tom Sawyer, which had been published on 9 June. The Belfords first priced their edition at $2.25 and then offered a $1.00 hardback and a $.75 paperback (Roper 1966, 31, 47; TS 1980, 20–21).

2 

This telegram has not been found, but Conway responded for Andrew Chatto (CU-MARK):

UCLC32436

Hamlet House, Hammersmith London Nov 4. You will, dear Clemens, receive by this mail my assignment of that copyright of Tom S which you asked for—both in this country & Canada. It went to my heart to part with copyright in Tom. There seemed to me millions in it. Much goods laid up for many years. Alas—Richness hath wings—Tempus fugit—i.e. Tom flies. I am happy to say that our edition of 2000 has nearly gone & I shall be able to send the wife & bairns a snug Xmas turkey! For a 7s6d edition this is not bad—our illustrated book has yet to come—and in the far distance shoals of railway Toms. Goodbye, Mark. Be happy and you will be virtuous (not however by too much intimacy with Ben Butler)

Thine
Conway

In the assignment fill up the L in your name—which I ridiculously forgot—if I ever knew

For the illustrated English editions of Tom Sawyer, see 4 July 76 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 2. Conway’s apparent illusion to Benjamin F. Butler, the former Union general and Republican congressman, remains unexplained.

3 

In his reply (CU-MARK), Conway alluded first to Clemens’s 28 October letterclick to open link to Ellen Conway:

UCLC32440
Hamlet House
                                         Hammersmith
                                             Nov. 16 1876
My dear Clemens,

Immediately after your cheery letter to Mrs. Conway who found it like a refreshing breeze in her convalescence—she has been quite ill,—came your distressful note of Nov. 2 telling us of Belford’s proceedings. I immediately held a council of war with Chatto, and by the first mail thereafter I send you the result of our cogitations.

Chatto & Windus have had no correspondence or negotiations, verbal or of any sort whatsoever, with Belford or any other publisher. Their proceedings are entirely spontaneous & highhanded.

We considered it best to telegraph Belford yesterday these words:—“Tom Sawyer is English copyright. Chatto.”

You will have probably seen the decision against Belford summarised in the American paper which I enclose to you.—Your lawyer will perhaps know all about the matter, but it seems to me that the only difference in our case, compared with Smiles’, is that I am not a British subject (as Smiles pleaded for himself.) If it were found best to fight Belford from England—seize his printing accounts and make him pay royalty on every copy manufactured and not in stock (which wd include both Canadian & American sales)—your lawyer would have to consider whether it would be too late to vest the copyright in Chatto & fight through him. He is not only a British subject but is already damaged by having his Canadian rights stolen (like Smiles’)  Or if this would seem retrospective, or ex post facto, it should be considered whether you ought to re-transfer the copyright to me (through enclosed form) and fight through me as the original owner of the English copyright against whom Belfords’ offense was committed. This would require knowledge whether the British subject point is of any importance, I not being such. [(]I don’t conceive it could be important: I pay taxes to England and have the right to have my property protected.)

I send you a note I have just received from Chatto, who feels strongly on the matter and I am sure may be depended on.

Of course if your lawyer thinks a transfer of copyright would have to be made to Chatto (and a Canadian opinion might be taken beforehand) we should transfer for ‘a consideration’ (which we would somehow make nominal though it ought to be large.[)] This would require a preliminary negotiation.

The form of transfer I send you is simply to have a hand for any emergency.

If I can think of anything else which ought to be said I will write again on Saturday.

I fear Belford would have been sharp enough to take care that all the copies sent across the [f]rontier to the United States were sold across his counter to parties for whose smuggling he may not be legally liable—even if you can punish an Englishman on his own soil for offences against foreign revenue laws. I fear customs rights depend on the power of the other nation to enforce them.

The case if you prosecute it will be a crucial one, and I hope no misstep will be taken.

We are glad to see a rainbow over the cloud—i.e. your coming visit to England. As I am out of your pistol-range I will send love to Mrs. Clemens.

Ever yours
M D Conway

I really wish you would try & write an article for Chatto’s excellent magazine—‘Belgravia.’ He will print it any month, dictated in time.

enclosure:

office of “belgravia”
London. W. Nov 15 1876
Dear Sir

I observed the point in Mr. Smiles’ case with Belfords respecting his rights as a British Subject.

I think the point is almost too fine for an English counsell to give an opinion upon with so meagre a report to guide him of what really took place at the Toronto court of Chancery. Mark Twains Lawyers must be more au fait than we can be knowing so little as to what has really been done. The Telegram to Belford Bros. that Tom Sawyer is English copyright must strengthen Mark Twains hands—

Had we not made the entries at Stationers Hall for Mark Twain, I think that there could have been no doubt about our right of action against Belfords for selling copies in Canada as an injuring of the us by supplying a market which we had bought of you— It is most seems to be reasonable even now that upon these grounds we could take proceedings*— But I imagine the serious injury to Twain is their flooding the American ma[r]ket with copies—against this no one can stand so well as Mark Twain himself.

*which we would do should Twain or yourself desire it

Yours faithfully
Andrew Chatto.
Conway’s other two enclosures do not survive. Chatto felt that by making “entries at Stationers Hall for Mark Twain” (between 1554 and 1924 British copyright was secured by registration with the Stationers’ Company in London), rather than for Chatto and Windus, he had potentially weakened his ability to litigate for copyright infringement. Conway soon reported the reply to Chatto’s 15 November telegram (CU-MARK):
UCLC32450
office of “belgravia”
2 pembroke gardens,kensington. w.
Hamlet House
                                         Hammersmith
                                             Dec. 9 ’76
My dear Clemens,

Chatto & Windus have received a letter from Belford of Toronto in which replying to our telegram to them (“Tom Sawyer is English copyright”) he (Belford) says:—“We today recd your telegram in reference to Tom Sawyer. We should be very sorry to conflict with your interest in any way in Canada. We know Americans are in the habit of taking out copyright in England, but we doubt if it would hold there: we are well advised that it gives no right in Canada. We shall be glad, however, to hear further from you on the subject.”

—In reply to this Chatto wrote that “hearing they were issuing an edition of that work they considered it was only right to inform them that the book was English copyright, and added that all the necessary steps had been taken in the country for the securing of the same.”

—Belfords have been in the habit of publishing Chatto & Windus works by agreements.

Dont forget our anxiety to hear about this matter

Ever yours
M D Conway

The Belfords were taking the same position they had taken in the suit against them in Canadian courts by Scottish reformer Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) for their unauthorized 1876 reprinting of Thrift, one of his popular self-help manuals, originally published in London in 1875. There they argued, unsuccessfully, that the Canadian copyright act of 1875, which required separate printing and copyright registration in Canada, superseded the Imperial copyright law and that therefore Smiles, who had not complied with the Canadian law, was not protected in Canada. Despite this recent “decision against Belford,” Clemens evidently did not pursue legal redress for the misappropriation of Tom Sawyer. Although “under Imperial copyright law” he “could have sought an injunction restraining the reprinting in Canada,” the damage to sales of the American Publishing Company edition could not be undone and the Canadian “penalty for illegal reprinting was small” (Roper 1966, 40–42, 49; Stationers’ Hall 2005; Smiles 1875). See also 13 Dec 76 to Conwayclick to open link.