New York,
January 18th, 1889.
Dear Mr. Whitman:
One frequently hears it said in connection with the agitation for
international copyright that the enactment of the proposed law1 is
desirable not only as a matter of justice to the foreign author,
and of protection to the native, but also because the flood of
English literature, especially of English fiction, which piracy
lets loose sets ideals before our young readers which are contrary
to the spirit of American life. I do not quite understand how the
English ideal of life differs from the American, but a discussion
of the subject which I propose to have in The North American
Review2 will, no doubt, be a source of
enlightenment. Will you be one of the symposium and send me your
views in an article of two thousand words, or less, for which,
of course, I will pay you? The American Ideal in Fiction3—that
will be the title; and each contributor will be expected to point
out everything which he considers objectionable in the habit of
reading foreign stories.
I am, dear Mr. Whitman,
Allen Thorndike Rice.
Correspondent:
Charles Allen Thorndike Rice
(1851–1889) was a journalist and edited and published the North American Review in New York from 1876 until his
death. His Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished
Men of His Time (1888) was published by The North American Review
Publishing Company.
Notes
- 1. It would be two years before
The International Copyright Act of 1891, also referred to as the Chace Act,
became the first U.S. Congressional Act to extend some limited copyright
protections to foreign copyright holders from select nations. [back]
- 2. The North
American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States.
The journalist Charles Allen Thorndike Rice (1851–1889) edited and
published the magazine in New York from 1876 until his death. Whitman's friend
James Redpath joined the North American Review as
managing editor in 1886. After Rice's death, Lloyd Bryce (1852–1915)
became owner and editor. At the time of this letter, William Rideing
(1853–1918) was assistant editor of the magazine. [back]
- 3. Whitman briefly mentioned
Rice's request for an article in the North American
Review in his letter to the Canadian physician Richard Maurice Bucke of
January 23–24, 1889: "Rec'd a letter
from Rice asking me to write for the N A Review." Whitman's hesitancy to oblige
Rice's request as well as his general disinterest for the piece can be gleaned
from With Walt Whitman in Camden: "I should acknowledge
it in some way: but as to writing about novelists, novels, English, American,
any other—God help me: I can't see my way to it . . . what he proposes is
out of my line . . . Sure enough why shouldn't I write about novels too if I am
of the mind to? though I hardly imagine that I shall do so in this instance"
(Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Thursday, January 24, 1889). [back]