The John Clare Copyright Dispute

'Let us trespass at once. Literature is no one's private ground; literature is common ground. It is not cut up into nations; there are no wars there. Let us trespass freely and fearlessly and find our own way for ourselves.' Virginia Woolf, 'The Leaning Tower', 1940. 

Press Coverage and Scholarly Articles

1.) PRESS COVERAGE AND DISCUSSION OF THE COPYRIGHT DISPUTE

[Most recent first]

Fenton, James, 'Getting Clare Clear', New York Review of Books, October 7, 2004, pp. 42-43. 

Pietrzykowski, Marc, 'Anxious of Eternity: Building a Nest for John Clare', Contemporary Poetry Review, [Feb?] 2004.

Rafferty, Terrence, 'John Clare: Nature Boy', New York Times, February 15, 2004.

Motion, Andrew, 'Sharp seeing, deep feeling', The Guardian, October 18, 2003. 

Bate, Jonathan, John Clare: A Biography, 'Appendix: Clare's Text' (London: Picador, 2003), pp. 563-575. 

Bunting, Chris, 'Why should "dead authors' descendants steal the livelihood of living writers"?', Times Higher, April 4, 2003, pp. 16-17.

Robinson, Eric, Letter: Clare's Rights, The Guardian, Saturday, February 1, 2003

Kövesi, Simon, Letter: Clare Copyright, The Guardian, Saturday December 7, 2002

Brooke-Taylor, Dru, Letter: Who owns Clare? The Guardian, Saturday November 30, 2002

Chilcott, Tim, Letter [1]: Poor Clare, The Guardian, Saturday November 23, 2002

Goodridge, John, Letter [2]: Poor Clare, The Guardian, Saturday November 23, 2002

Heyes, Robert, Letter: Clare's Champion, The Guardian, Saturday November 16, 2002

Mullan, John, 'Pistils at dawn', The Guardian,  Saturday November 9 2002. 

Lloyd, Jonathan, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS 3 November 2000, p. 21.

Price, Matthew, 'Free and Clare', Lingua Franca, Volume 10, No. 8, November 2000, pp. 22-25. 

Orlans, Harold, 'Publishing a Dead Poet', Change, November 2000.

Wells, Robert, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 20 October 2000, p. 17. 

Peters, Catherine, ‘John Clare and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 6 October 2000, p. 19. 

Cripps, Peter, 'Academics Row Over Poet's Work', Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 6 October, 2000, p. 19. 

Glover, Michael, 'The clash of paper swords' [review], Independent on Sunday, 1 October, 2000. 

Kövesi, Simon, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 29 September 2000, p. 17.

Lloyd, Jonathan, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 22 September 2000, p. 17.

Wareham, John, ‘John Clare Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 8 September 2000, p. 17.

Goodridge, John, ‘John Clare Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 8 September 2000, p. 17.

Robinson, Eric H., ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 1 September 2000, p. 17.

Kövesi, Simon, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 25 August 2000, p. 17.

Burton, Raffell, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 25 August 2000, p. 17.

Fletcher, C.V., ‘Poems Belong to World’ [letter], Nottingham Evening Post, 17 August 2000, p. 26.

Jarvis, Edward, ‘A War of Words to "Free" Poet’, Nottingham Evening Post, 11 August 2000, p. 31.

Groom, Nick, and Ramsden, Alison, ‘Readers’ Reactions’ [letters], The Times Higher, 11 August 2000, p. 16.

Powell, David, ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 11 August 2000, p. 17.

Percy, William A., ‘John Clare Scholarship and Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 11 August 2000, p. 17.

Kövesi, Simon, ‘Whispers on a Not So Clear-cut Case of Publish and Be Damned’, The Times Higher, 4 August 2000, pp. 20-21.

Goodridge, John, ‘Poor Clare’, The Guardian, 22 July, 2000, Weekend section, p. 3.

Leader, Zachary, ‘Editorial Injustice in the Raw’, The Times Higher, 21 July 2000, p. 16.

Bate, Jonathan, ‘Commentary: Don’t Fence Him In’, TLS, 21 July 2000, pp. 14-15.

Mendick, Robert, ‘Poets Protest as US Scholar Corners Clare’, Independent on Sunday, 16 July 2000, p. 5.

Goodridge, John, John Barrell, Tim Chilcott and 25 others, ‘John Clare’s Copyright’ [letter], TLS, 14 July 2000, p. 15.

Nicolson, Stuart, ‘Academic’s Quest for Poetic Justice’, The Scotsman, 16 November 1999, p. 3.

Kossick, Kaye, Review of Love Poems, British Association for Romantic Studies Bulletin & Review, No. 16, September 1999, pp. 19-20.

Phelps, Humphrey, ‘People’s Poet’, The Countryman, Summer 1999, pp. 104-6.

Groom, Nick, ‘Let Poetic Voice Speak’ [letter], The Times Higher, 20 August 1999, p. 13.

Wallace, Jennifer, ‘Dead Poet’s Propriety’, The Times Higher, 13 August 1999, p. 15.

Pavitt, Analise, ’Academics in War of Words’, Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 6 August 1999, pp. 2, 6, 8-9.

Jarvis, Edward, ‘Clare Advantage’, Nottingham Evening Post, 21 July 1999, p. 19.

Tonkin, Boyd, ‘The People’s Poet Must Be Set Free’, Independent on Sunday, 10 July 1999, Weekend Review section.

Kövesi, Simon, Review of John Clare: Poems of the Middle Period, (Vols. I & II) in Romanticism, volume 4.2, 1998.

Goodridge, John, 'Clare Should Belong to Us All' [letter], Independent on Sunday, 23 July 1995, p. 22.

Stummer, Robin and Nick Curwin, 'John Clare’s Lost Poems Revealed', Independent on Sunday, 16 July 1995.

Grainger, Margaret, Review of 'John Clare, Selected Poetry and Prose', eds. Merryn and Raymond Williams (London: Methuen, 1986), Review of English Studies, 39 (November 1988), pp. 565-566.

‘Strange Case of the Clare Copyright’, Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 2 February 1979

The Times, 1 September 1975 (legal notice on the copyright, placed by George Stephenson).

2.) SCHOLARLY ARTICLES ON THE COPYRIGHT

 [In Date Order]

Haughton, Hugh, ‘Review Essay: Revision and Romantic Authorship: the Case of Clare’, John Clare Society Journal, 17 (1998), pp. 65-73.

Griffiths, Jonathan, ‘Copyright in English Literature: Denying the Public Domain’, European Intellectual Property Review, 22, no. 4 (April 2000), pp. 150-3.

Bate, Jonathan, ‘John Clare’s Copyright, 1854-1893’, John Clare Society Journal, 19 (2000), pp. 19-32 [extracted in the TLS, 21 July 2000]. 

Chilcott, Tim, ‘Child Harold or Child Harolds: The Editing of Clare’s Texts’, John Clare Society Journal, 19 (2000), pp. 5-17.

Gaull, Marilyn, 'From the Editor', The Wordsworth Circle (Vol XXXI, No. 3, Summer 2000), pp. 109-110.

Kövesi, Simon, ‘The John Clare Copyright: 1820-2000’, The Wordsworth Circle (Vol XXXI, No. 3, Summer 2000), pp. 112-119 [extracted in The Times Higher, 4 August 2000].

Barry, Peter, 'The Editorial Commentary', English: The Journal of the English Association, 49 (Autumn 2000), pp. 301-307. 

Bate, Jonathan, John Clare: A Biography, 'Appendix: Clare's Text' (London: Picador, 2003), pp. 563-575. 

 

Compiled by Simon Kovesi and John Goodridge

26 September 2005