Dickens and International Copyright

Before leaving for America, in January 1842, Dickens wrote that he ‘yearned to know its people,’ and that it was the land of his dreams. On returning, only five months later, he declared, “It is no use, I am disappointed. This is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination.” To many of his American critics, the real disappointment was not at what he saw, but at the failure of “an impudent speculative trip” foolishly undertaken in the hope of securing a profitable international copyright agreement. At the time Dickens denied it furiously. There is no doubt that he was right. Yet so great was his fame that we still tend to link Dickens and International copyright, unaware that almost in spite of himself he was caught up in a movement in which he was bound by ties of loyalty to his fellow authors and his own reputation for frankness to assert their rights with all the means he could command. It would be wrong to disassociate Dicken's views on International copyright and his opinions on the United States in general; but the time has come by now to allow that he did not speak solely for himself in the matter, and that he fairly believed that he was acting in the best interests of literature in both Britain and the United States.