Publishing Peter Pindar: Production, Profits, and Piracy in Georgian Satire

On 2 February 1802, John Wolcot (the satirical poet "Peter Pindar") filed a copyright infringement claim in Chancery Court against his own publisher, London bookseller John Walker and his partners George Goulding, George Robinson, his brother John, and his son George Robinson, Jr. It was the third litigation among the parties since 1798, following nine years of haggling over the conditions of the publishers' purchase of Wolcot's copyrights to thirty-seven of already published titles of verse. At issue was whether their agreement allowed them to include some of Wolcot's newer individual Pindar titles in their multivolume octavo and duodecimo sets of The Works of Peter Pindar. Here, Alexander takes a look at this case.