CUTTING A STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15353, 29 September 1923, Page 3

CUTTING A STORY.

AN EDITOR’S RIGHTS. UNSUITABLE FOR NEWSPAPER. Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn. LONDON, Sept. 26. The legal right of an editor to cut the work of a famous novelist during serial publication was raised when Stephen McKenna brought action against the Referee to-day. The Referee purchased the serial rights for £SOO in the novel “ Gloria." Mr Curnock, the editor, later invited Mr McKenna to make alterations. Mr McKenna refused, but on July 22 the Referee published an instalment with heavy cuts. Mr McKenna alleged that these.amounted to infringement of his copyright. Mr Curnock contended that the passages were unsuitable’ for publication in the Referee, particularly two elaborate accounts of the seduction of married and unmarried women. The Referee's counsel urged that a newspaper was not like a book, which could be put away if desired. A newspaper was always open for children and servants to read.

Mr McKenna’s counsel retorted that if the Referee made a bad bargain, it need not have printed the story at all, but it had no right to interfere with an author’s work.

' Mr Justice McCardie asked, did the omission of the two seduction stories injure Mr McKenna’s literary reputation.

Counsel: He is the best judge of his own reputation.

The Judge: Excuse me; no man is the best judge of his own reputation.

Counsel: He is as good a judge as the editor. Mr McCardie said that his view was that Mr McKenna treated the episode with great power, great art, and great realism. This question was between the realistic school of novelists and the journalistic school.

Finally, Mr McKenna decided to accept the editor's promise not to further cut the story, pending the trial. The judge said that nothing in the case lowered the literary reputation of Mr McKenna.