“He resolves to say no more”

Posted on December 21, 2023 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Thomas Hardy grew famous for his novels in the 19th century, but he considered himself primarily a poet, publishing over 1000 poems in his lifetime. He finished the manuscript to his last collection, Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres, shortly before he died in the winter of 1928. Matthew Shaw, whose library owns and has digitized it, writes about it here. Hardy’s ashes are in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. His last book joins the US public domain in 11 days.

About John Mark Ockerbloom

I'm a digital library strategist at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.
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4 Responses to “He resolves to say no more”

  1. Karl Auerbach says:
    December 21, 2023 at 10:21 pm

    @everybodyslibraries.com I hated Hardy when I was forced to read him in high school.

    But since then his writing has greatly improved. I don't know what he did, perhaps he took a writing course or something? Whatever he did, I now find his books quite enjoyable.

  2. Chris Rusbridge says:
    December 22, 2023 at 4:12 am

    I don’t know why I was quite so surprised to realise this book would have been in the UK public domain for 25 years! I vaguely know we are in some strange inter-regnum between the old US (C) system and the 70 years post mortem rule, but I realise I don’t understand it at all!

    Reply
  3. John Mark Ockerbloom says:
    December 22, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    In the US, the “life+70 years” rule that’s standard in the UK and many other countries doesn’t apply to older publications, which instead use terms that go for a fixed time period from publication or registration, and may require renewals. One consequence of this is that late-career works by well-known, long-lived authors (like Hardy) stay in copyright in the US longer than they do elsewhere, but early-career works often enter the public domain here sooner (such as Evelyn Waugh’s first novel, which I noted earlier in this year’s countdown, joining the US publication domain next month even though its UK copyright still has years to go).

    Reply
  4. Chris Rusbridge says:
    December 22, 2023 at 3:44 pm

    Thanks John. I’m more in favour of the renewable fixed time period myself, but I guess that’s a lost cause (unless it was to be a century or two!). Chris

    Reply

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