aving complete control over their register-books,
made what entries they chose, and all kinds of books, even Homer and
the Classics, became the 'property' of its members. The booksellers,
nearly all Londoners, respected each other's 'copies,' and jealously
guarded access to their registers. From time to time there were sales
by auction of a bookseller's 'copies,' but the public--that is, the
country booksellers, for there were no other likely buyers--were
excluded from the sale-room. A great monopoly was thus created and
maintained by the trade. There was never any examination of title to a
bookseller's copy. Every book of repute was supposed to have a
bookseller for its owner. Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ was Mr.
Ponder's copy, Milton's _Paradise Lost_ Mr. Tonson's copy, _The Whole
Duty of Man_ Mr. Eyre's copy, and so on. The thing was a corrupt and
illegal trade combination.

The expiration of the Licensing Act, and the consequent cessation of
the penalties it inflicted upon unlicensed printing, exposed the
proprietors of 'copies' to an invasion of their rights, real or
supposed, and in 1703, and again in 1706 and 1709, they applied to
Parliament for a Bill to protect them against the 'ruin' with which
they alleged themselves to be threatened.[A]

[Footnote A: What the booksellers wanted was not to be left to their
common law remedy--_i.e._, an action of trespass on the case--but to
be supplied with penalties for infringement, and especially with the
right to seize and burn unauthorized editions.]

In 1710 they got what they asked for in the shape of the famous
Statute of Queen Anne, the first copyright law in the world. A truly
English measure, ill considered and ill drawn, which did the very last
thing it was meant to do--viz., destroy the property it was intended
to protect.

By this Act, in which the 'author' first makes his appearance actually
in front of the 'proprietor,' it was provided that, _in case of new
books_, the author and his assigns should have the sole right of
printing them for fourteen years, and if at the end of that time the
author was still alive, a second term of fourteen years was conceded.
In the case of _existing books_, there was to be but one term--viz.,
twenty-one years, from August 10, 1710.

Registration at the Stationers' Company was still required, but
nothing was said as to who might make the entries, or into whose names
they were to be made.

Then followed the desired p