Everybody's Libraries

Before being known for characters like Walter Mitty and Charlotte the literate spider, James Thurber and E.B. White collaborated on a send-up of late-1920s New Yorker preoccupations with sex, changing gender roles, psychoanalysis, and overthinking. Is Sex Necessary? may also be the first publication of Thurber’s distinctively simple drawings, which White says he included after fishing them out of the trash and inking them in. The book joins the public domain in 41 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Helen Keller struggled to write the story of her life as an adult. Knowing it had to go through her close associates, she tried to balance her radical politics with broad appeals for support for blind people, omit the role of her “Teacher”‘s marital woes in her household turmoil, and weigh her words carefully on her failed attempts (reported in the press) to elope with a lover when her family objected to her marrying. Her Midstream becomes public domain in 42 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

The hardboiled detective genre arose in Black Mask magazine. Once considered disposable, its pulp issues are now hard to find. Dashiell Hammett‘s first two novels there, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, gained staying power when revised versions came out as books in 1929.

Hammett’s Sam Spade debuted in The Maltese Falcon, published in 5 installments in Black Mask ending in the January 1930 issue. That issue went on sale in 1929, so it’ll all be public domain in 43 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

“Singin’ in the Bathtub” was Warner Brothers’ answer to rival studio MGM’s “Singin’ in the Rain”. Introduced in 1929’s Show of Shows, it was reused in many later films, including Tweety Bird and Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Warner’s very first Looney Tunes cartoon, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub”, used it too. Its 1930 copyright wasn’t renewed, and since this song and others featured in it were published in 1929 or earlier, everything in it should be public domain in 45 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Arthur Freed and Nacio Scott Brown’s “Singin’ in the Rain” appears to have first been performed in 1928 in the stage show Hollywood Music Box Revue. Copyrighted in 1929, the song reached movie audiences in The Hollywood Revue, and was also heard in many later shows. Gene Kelly memorably sang it dancing through puddles and heavy showers in the 1952 movie of the same name, set around the time the song was first released. In 46 days, we can sing it in the public domain. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

As Jacob Loshin writes, magicians rely on a distinctive type of intellectual property– their tricks and the secrets of how to do them– that’s usually protected not by copyright or patent, but by informal but strongly enforced community norms.

Harry Blackstone‘s 1929 Secrets of Magic, written for lay audiences, doesn’t give away his profession’s signature effects, but explains more basic techniques and tricks. It does rely on a copyright, one that vanishes in 47 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Dorothy L. Sayers’ Omnibus of Crime was a selection of the then-still-new Book of the Month Club in 1929. It includes stories of detection, mystery and horror spanning over 2000 years, and opens with an extended essay by Sayers on the development and art of those genres that’s often been reprinted. Rights issues made this edition’s selections differ a bit from a differently-titled British edition, but both versions will definitely be public domain in the US in 48 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Thimble Theatre was a 10-year-old comic with waning readership when its lead character Castor Oyl hired a wisecracking sailor to crew a ship he’d bought. Popeye left after their ocean voyage ended, but audience appeal brought him back after a few weeks away. He wasn’t fully developed in 1929, lacking spinach and not yet Olive Oyl’s beau, but would soon be star of the strip and of an ongoing multimedia franchise. In 49 days, his earliest adventures will be public domain. #PublicDomainDayCountdown