Everybody's Libraries

“For generations of women– and men– on their own difficult passages to sexual self-discovery, The Well of Loneliness became a beacon” writes Hephzibah Anderson on Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel, which joins the US public domain in 7 weeks. One of the first modern novels openly on lesbian relationships published for a wide audience, it was both groundbreaking and very much of its time. Its banning could also once be seen as a phenomenon of the past, but today not so much. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

I was interested to scroll through the Goodreads reviews of Robert Nathan’s The Bishop’s Wife, a book not as well known or as much loved as its film adaptations (the 1947 movie of the same name, and the 1996 movie The Preacher’s Wife).

While the darker story didn’t satisfy many readers who loved the films, some readers saw value in it, as clearly did the film adapters. When it goes public domain in 50 days, more will have opportunities to adapt it or enjoy it as-is. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

“My experiences in the First World War have haunted me all my life and for many days I have, it seemed, lived in that world rather than this.”

Edmund Blunden wrote that over 40 years after he published Undertones of War. Readers like Ian Brinton find its economical prose, focusing on the mundane experiences of soldiers with a keen implied sense of the tragedy and waste of the war, one of the most memorable accounts of that world. It joins the US public domain in 51 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

Edward Bernays so described propaganda in his influential book of that title. I hope more use the book as a guide to resist it than as a how-to manual when it joins the public domain in 52 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Not everyone was a fan of The House at Pooh Corner. An infamous review of the book ran in the Constant Reader column of the October 20, 1928 issue of The New Yorker, in which Dorothy Parker pronounced “Tonstant Weader Fwowed up”.

The New Yorker ran many pieces in 1928 by Parker and other members of the sardonic Algonquin Round Table, as well as by other long-read writers like James Thurber and EB White. All of its 1928 issues will join the public domain in 53 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Everyone’s lives are disrupted in The House at Pooh Corner. Newcomer Tigger bounces routines off-kilter; Owl’s house falls; Piglet moves in with Pooh; Christopher Robin goes away to school. Ryan Britt writes “Pooh was not intended to be… on an endless series of profitable ‘expositions'” and that the book’s end is “one of the most devastatingly perfect endings ever”. In 54 days, its US copyright ends, and AA Milne & EH Shepard’s 100 Aker Wood will all be public domain. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Victor Yarros wrote of Charles Beard’s The American Party Battle “Why do parties survive issues and die morally while pretending to carry on?… [Those] who would like to know what has happened to republicanism or democracy are confidently referred to Professor Beard’s little volume.”

55 days before the book joins our public domain, Americans can shape the future of republicanism and democracy by voting in today’s state and local elections. Let’s make the most of it. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

In Grace Taber Hallock’s fantasy The Boy Who Was, Nino, a boy given eternal youth by the Sirens, relates what he’s seen and done in his Italian coastal town over thousands of years, from the time of Odysseus to 1927. The book, with illustrations by Harrie Wood, was one of the Newbery Honor books of 1929.

When this book joins the public domain in 56 days, we’ll be able not only to freely read it, but freely write further adventures of Nino to and beyond the present. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

The posters for the silent drama Love read “John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in LOVE”, playing off both the on-screen and off-screen romance of its two stars. The movie, based on Anna Karenina, was filmed with two endings, one where Anna has the same end as in Tolstoy’s novel, and one with a happier ending. American audiences preferred the latter (and Rick’s Cafe Texan defends it in this review). The film’s copyright (from 1928, despite its 1927 release) happily ends in 57 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown

Esther Forbes is best known for her books on colonial New England, winning a Pulitzer prize for her biography of Paul Revere, and the Newbery for her novel Johnny Tremain.

Her first book on that era, A Mirror for Witches, is set in the Salem witchcraft craze. Ben Kilpela says her novel conveys “what it really felt and feels like to believe in demons so deeply that it could steer people who so believe into unwitting error.” It joins the public domain in 58 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown