The Transatlantic Publishing Industry: Book Trade, Copyright, Reception, 1776–1891

This chapter discusses the transatlantic publishing industry in the nineteenth century. Its focus is on the publication of British-authored texts in the United States, from Independence in 1776 to the passing of the first bilateral copyright act, the Chace Act, in 1891. The lack of an international copyright agreement was the single most important determinant of the transatlantic trade in texts. In the US it meant that British authors were not protected by copyright and consequently did not need to be paid, unlike their American counterparts. The reprint trade of British texts in America was therefore a very important component of the American market; however, the nineteenth century also saw the development of an increasingly independent American publishing industry that brought out a growing proportion of American authors. Investigating the various ways in which British texts were made available in the United States emphasises the importance of the transatlantic dimension of literary culture in the nineteenth century.