A LITERARY GRIEVANCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20318, 28 January 1928, Page 10

A LITERARY GRIEVANCE.

“ Authors, as a rule, are a poor downtrodden lot,” recently remarked Mr W. B. Maxwell, a well-known novelist, in the course of evidence before a joint committee of the Houses of Lords aud Commons. The remark was of the nature of a playful exaggeration, aud it caused amusement to the members of the committee, but it was related to a serious complaint. Mr Maxwell, it may be remembered, is a son of Mrs M. E. Maxwell, better known as Miss Braddon, author of “ Lady Aucliey’s Secret ” aud a hundred or more once popular novels. He is chairman of the Incorporated Society of Authors, in which capacity he appeared before the joint committee in support of a Bill to amend the law of libel, in the direction or providing that, if an author sued for libel in respect of the contents of his works can prove to the satisfaction of the court that he had - no intention of referring to the plaintiff, or that he was not aware of the existence of the plaintiff, and that ho exercised care in the choice of names, no offence shall have been committed. It would probably be a surprise to most people to learn that this is a matter of really px-actical import in the, literary world. Mr Maxwell stigmatised as “ a legalised form of blackmail ” the practice by which people whose names have been inadvertently used in a disparaging sense in books, and who have not suffered the least damage, institute proceedings for libel. It seems that in the present state of the law, when authors or publishers are sued in circumstances such as these their legal advisers usually recommend them to compromise and pay something under protest. Obviously it is impossible that, however careful they may be, writers of fiction of which several thousand works are issued in the course of a single year, can avoid the occasional use of names of actual living people. In eax-lier times it was not even considered incumbent upon an author to txy to avoid such use. Charles Dickens, so far from shunning real names, used deliberately to pick eccentric specimens of nomenclature from shop frontages. It has been said that nearly all of Dickens’s character names, outlandish as many of them are, may be found in the London directory of one period or other. Anthony Trollope’s and George Eliot’s novels are full of surnames of everyday occurrence. Mr Maxwell was asked if he would consider it negligent on the part of an author if he did not search certain easily accessible lists aud other sources of information before selecting the names of his fictitious characters. “ Yes,” he replied, “ cei'tainly I would ; it is difficult to do so, but I think it should be done by the author,” In the course of his evidence Mr Maxwell mentioned a curious circumstance, though not strictly relevant to the matter under discussion. “It sometimes happens,” he said, “that Peers take their titles from novels. Years ago I wrote a novel and I invented two English noblemen, and called them Lord Colwyn aud Lord Stonehaven. As a matter of fact, these titles are actually used to-day, and the author has no redress. ”