A Caroling Court - Dickens v. Lee (1844)

John Leech; public domain

Today, in keeping with the season, The Kayla Konnection is bringing you an overview of an IP Lawsuit featuring Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Within this post, you will find an overview of Dickens V. Lee (1844). Let's dive into this festive case!

In 1844, Dickens published one of his most famous works, A Christmas Carol. He published the first edition of this work under commission through Chapman and Hall. This means he was responsible for all production costs and therefore received all profits of his publication. Dickens sold his book for 5 shillings (equivalent to around $18 today).

Around two weeks after Dickens's publication, a weekly journal of the time, Parley's Illuminated Library, published the first in its series of A Christmas Ghost Story. Parley's stated to its readers that this was a was a "re-originated" version of Charles Dickens's recently published work. Each weekly copy of Parley's sold for 2 pence per copy, and they intended to publish an additional section of their re-originated story each week until the story reached its conclusion.

Appalled at this glaring copyright infringement Dickens went to court with his attorneys, seeking "redress for piracy" from Parley's publishers and also "against four booksellers and publishers" who were selling Parley's version of his Carol tale (Rose). The Court of Chancery granted Dickens interim injunctions against all 5 parties. An interim injunction is a court order for a party (or parties) to stop the action in question while an official decision is made after a case. This meant that Parley's, the booksellers, and publishers were prevented from publishing or selling the installments of A Christmas Ghost Story until the case was ruled upon.

Dickens V. Lee reached an anti-climatic resolution when the Parley's Publishers filed for Bankruptcy before the case could go on. By filing for Bankruptcy Parley's cheekily avoided further discipline in court for their blatant piracy of Dickens's work, and he in turn was saddled with hefty legal costs.

In the decades that have followed this case, many questions have arisen regarding the use of work in Parley's publication, along with many other publications that abridge works for younger readers without express permission to the copyrighted material. While these abridgments do make literature accessible for younger ages who may not yet have the reading stamina for full-fledged novels, these publications detract from not only the author's profits, but also from the literary meaning, the creative freedom, and the creative right to possess their writing as their own without piracy encroaching upon their work.

Thank you so much for supporting The Kayla Konnection this past year. This is my passion project and I am so grateful for your continued reading! I wish you all a joyful and warm holiday season and a wonderful new year!

~Kayla

Resources for this post include the following:

Grafting "A Christmas Carol", Michael Hancher

Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 48, No. 4, The Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 2008), pp. 813-827. Rice University

Dickens V. Lee (1944): A Christmas Tale of Two Experts Testifying, Mark Rose, Cardozo AELJ, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 227 - 242. Cardozo School of Law