Copyright, Competition, and the First English-Language Translations of Les Misérables (1862)

I. INTRODUCTION II. GENESIS AND FORM OF HUGO'S NOVEL III. COPYRIGHT PROTECTION OF LITERARY TRANSLATION IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES A. Domestic Protection B. International Protection IV. ENGLISH-LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS A. Charles E. Wilbour B. Lascelles Wraxall and the "Authorized English Translation" C. Pooley's American copy of Wraxall D. Defects of the "Authorized Translation" E. Supplementing Wraxall F. The Confederate Piracy V. BATTLE OF THE BOOKS EPILOGUE APPENDIX I. INTRODUCTION After 150 years, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862) still ranks as one of the great hits in publishing history. (1) It has reached generations of English language readers through five separate translations (2) and found vast new audiences through abridgements, sequels, stage adaptations, comic books, films, and musicals. Hugo's critique of the injustice wrought by legal institutions has appealed with particular force to judges, lawyers, and members of the legal academy. Hundreds of law review articles and scores of judicial opinions quote passages from the novel or refer to familiar characters or events in it. (3) This Article explores the early history of Les Miserables in England and the United States, focusing on English-language translations that were published from 1862 to 1882. Drawing on the emerging field of the history of the book, (4) it pays close attention to the physical embodiments of the translated texts, considering distinguishing details of individual imprints, such as typography, printing, and binding. (5) This printing history provides important evidence of how Les Miserables was actually purchased and read by readers and reveals how publishers responded to the legal restrictions imposed by the different copyright regimes in Britain and the United States. This Article has two aims. First, it seeks to reconstruct a seminal event in nineteenth-century culture by focusing attention on the legal conditions that confronted commercial publishers. This historical research yields some modest new discoveries in print history and results in the first sustained legal historical discussion of the impact of copyright law on a specific literary translation. Second, this Article deviates from the descriptive work of academic history in considering possible lessons to be drawn from publishing history that are relevant to contemporary debates about the scope of copyright law. Part II provides essential background for understanding the challenges facing translators and publishers of Les Miserables. It summarizes the history of Hugo's composition of the novel and his intentions regarding the format of its publication. This Part's description of the physical form and internal organization of the work provides the foundation for subsequent discussions of the manner in which particular translations departed from the original novel. Part III examines the scope of copyright protection for literary translations during the nineteenth century. It examines how British and U.S. law in the 1860s accorded foreign authors significantly different rights to control the translation of their writings. Part IV describes the translation, publishing, and marketing of the first two English-language translations of Les Miserables. This Part shows how the different copyright regimes in Britain and the United States decisively affected the translations that were available, the physical form of the books, and their cost. Part V surveys the print history of translations of Les Miserables from 1862 to 1882 and shows how the American translation in various forms came to dominate the market both in the U.S. and in Britain. The Epilogue considers the fate of translations as a test case for evaluating the impact of copyright laws on the publication and marketing of books. (6) This Article argues that the exclusive right to translate literary works in Britain encouraged the production of expensive multi-volume books that contained a demonstrably inferior "authorized" translation. …