Looking back: Classic novels that recently lost their copyrights, other reissues
Every January works that have been protected for 95 years under copyright controls finally enter the public domain. Therefore plays, books and music that were originally placed under copyright protection in 1925 just entered the public domain. With that in mind publishers will plan to issue notable books as the copyrights expire. Here are several freshly reprinted titles that just had their copyrights lapse.
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Everyman’s Library, 148 pages, $22). and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Vintage Classics, 174 pages, $16).
‘The Great Gatsby,” the Roaring Twenties novel about the millionaire Jay Gatsby and his lost love Daisy Buchanan, is probably the most notable book to lose copyright protection this year. The decadence of that period is observed through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway. There are some new paperback and hardcover versions. Readers can choose between numerous updated editions and variations on this classic story. When books enter the public domain writers can freely adapt or even change stories without paying any royalties. Now there are unusual variants coming out, even a zombie version of Gatsby.
“Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf (Vintage Classics, 219 pages, $9.95)
This story takes place on one day in June of 1923. The literary visionary Virginia Woolf wrote this novel in a stream of consciousness style. The main characters are Clarissa Dalloway, a 51-year-old woman who is preparing to host a party that evening at her home in London, and Septimus
Smith, a 30-year-old WWI veteran, suffering from shell shock, who is having quite a difficult day. This is truly a great novel. Woolf was ahead of her time.
“Manhattan Transfer” by John Dos Passos (Vintage Classics, 437 pages, $9.95)
Here’s another novel written in a futuristic style. Dos Passos describes the teeming metropolis of Manhattan between the 1890s and the 1920s. There are many characters and four primary ones. There’s a woman who wants to become an actor. After she succeeds she is in such demand that she can no longer differentiate between genuine people who actually care about her and those who merely want to be immersed in her celebrity. There is a young man who fled to the city after killing his abusive
father. There’s an unethical lawyer and a crusading journalist. Dos Passos delivers a lacerating critique of consumerism.
Publishers will also reissue early works by writers who have become famous. The first two books by the crime novelist James Ellroy were just reissued in paperback. Ellroy’s genius was already apparent.
“Brown’s Requiem” by James Ellroy (Vintage, 321 pages, $17).
Forty years ago Ellroy made his debut with this gritty novel about Fritz Brown, a full-time repo-man in Los Angeles who moonlights as a private eye. The jacket copy trumpets “diving into a cesspool of payoffs, incest, and arson, Brown’s California dreaming transforms into a technicolor nightmare.”
“Clandestine” by James Ellroy (Vintage, 433 pages, $17).
Ellroy followed it up the next year with “Clandestine.” Set in 1951 in Los Angeles, an ambitious rookie cop named Fred Underhill decides that the fastest way for him to rise through the ranks will be if he can apprehend a serial strangler. This novel gave this reviewer chills.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For moreinformation, visit www. wyso.org/programs/booknook. Contact him atvick@ vickmickunas.com