remained unaffected, after
publication he had no rights except during the period specified by the
statute. This decision is still believed by many authorities to have
been a wrong one, but it has been the basis for all subsequent
copyright law in this country as well as in England. Therefore in the
United States to-day, the right of ownership lies in the author until
his work is published, but upon publication he has no rights except
those given him by law, and these he can obtain only by a strict
compliance with the requirements of the law. Any one who is
sufficiently interested to read the first hundred pages of Drone's
"Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual Productions" will be
well repaid for the effort, and will obtain considerable light upon
how the "right of copying," or printing, a book developed, why its
duration is not unlimited, and why we must observe certain formalities
in order to protect our literary work by it.

PUBLICITY

By Vivian Burnett.

The duty of bringing the productions of a publishing house to the
attention of the public is a very important one, and much depends upon
the cleverness and energy with which it is discharged. It can easily
be seen that no matter how good the books brought out by a firm, they
would be likely to remain on stockroom shelves if readers were not
properly made aware of their issue. The name "Publicity department" is
the most descriptive title that can be given to the part of the staff
devoting its energies to the many variations of news-spreading
involved in this work.

Publicity involves both editorial and commercial elements. From the
editorial side it is of prime importance that the person in charge of
the publicity have at the very beginning a complete and definite idea
of the reasons that have ruled in the acceptance of a book,--what
class of people it was published for, and just what species of a book
it is considered to be. Is it purposed to appeal to a certain
religious class of people? Is it for the distinctly literary? Perhaps
it is one of those volumes on the border line between a juvenile and
an adult's book, which may be presented either as a volume for young
or for grown-up folks. The publicity man must be in full understanding
of this estimate before he can do his work properly. On the commercial
side, he must know just the feeling of the trade in regard to an
author and any type of book; and must be in close touch with the
salesmen,