Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847.Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847.
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
You enter "Napper Tandy" in the "Clerk's Office of the Southern
District of New York." The next number of _Blackwood_ comes out with
your first chapter, which Reprint unguardedly produces in his _fac
simile_. Don't you see, my dear fellow, that if you ever hooked a
gudgeon, you have as certainly caught the republisher? You seize ten
thousand copies in his warehouse, just as they are about to be
distributed over the land. On each copy, he must pay, in addition to
his forfeiture, one dollar a sheet; that is to say, ten thousand
dollars for your first chapter; of which, after the government has
gone snacks, one thousand guineas are your guarantee for the interest
which the Republic takes in her invited guests; and (to the dismay of
piracy,)
"The law allows it, and the court awards."
Mr Blackwood will doubtless take care that your work shall not be
completed too fast: and as long as the interminable "Napper Tandy"
continues, the press of the fac-simile must stand still. Meanwhile,
you commence a legitimate reprint, under the genuine Ebony arms, and
reign as a kind of lord-lieutenant, under his ambrosial majesty,
Christopher the Great. The stereotype plates of Maga reach you every
month, and the American public discern the difference between a true
fac-simile and a cunning counterfeit. Instead of the sham
_tete-de-Buchanan_, they see the very "trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;"
and finding themselves as little taxed for the original, as ever they
were for the humbug, vote you a public benefactor, and send a
round-robin to Congress demanding the instantaneous enactment of a
universal copyright law, if not the grant of a gold medal to the
beneficent Godfrey. I anticipate, however, your reply. Ten thousand
copyrights would not tempt you to pass more than three months in the
year away from your Kentish comforts and cousins! Very well--then
perish dreams of lord-lieutenancy; and learn the inevitable fate of
your neglected literary offspring. The same day that Import and
Profits advertise their London copies of "Napper Tandy," at five
dollars a volume, any number of shirtless little vagabonds will be
crying it in a pamphlet edition from Astor House to Wall Street, and
through all the thoroughfares, for a currency shilling. I wish you
might see your own degradation, as I shall be forced to behold that of
my friend. Think of an illustrated edition coming out, under the
auspices of Napper Tandy M'Dermot, Esq., in which that namesake of
your hero undertakes to give your biography, and describes you as the
occupant of a garret, in the receipt of wages from government, for
manufacturing false representations of characters inestimably dear to
patriots, and odious to tyrants only! Think of that person actually
taking out a copyright for his edition of your own book, on the
grounds of his thus doing for your character the very thing which he
reprobates as your detestable trade; and so enjoying for no very
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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