D. J. [Douglas Jerrold], ‘The Rights of Dramatists’

English dramatists are philosophers. They have been subjected to the whims and caprice of those whose professional lives depended on the men they have slighted—and have they complained. The author’s right and property continues in his works during his life, and in posthumous works during the lives of those who have become donors of them: after them it reverts to the heirs. The children of authors have an exclusive right of printing the works of their deceased parents for twenty years; but the other heirs for only ten years. These rights belong to the surviving husband or wife during life, provided the marriage settlement permits it. The present unjust state of the law annihilates the civil rights of the author to his own; he is forgotten by the legislature, and can hardly expect to be remembered by those to whose immediate interest he devotes his labours.