Reuters Reports An unassuming retired lecturer is behind the French literary sensation of the summer, having rescued the forgotten last novel of the 19th century epic novelist Alexandre Dumas from the dustbin of history.
Claude Schopp, who has devoted 30 years to the study of every aspect of the author’s flamboyant life, stumbled across a first clue to the existence of a lost work in the late 1980s.
The discovery in the national archives of a handwritten letter by Dumas set Schopp off on a paper trail of clues worthy of the “Da Vinci Code.”
copyright?
Ok, so it appears there is no English translation of the newly-discovered novel, so I wonder which bestsellers lists it is on.
Now, all you copyright experts, if someone finds a novel that was never published, does the copyright clock start over, or is this sucker in the public domain?
Re:copyright?
Actually, much of it was published in serial form in a newspaper (which is where he found it). I believe he finished it off, and probably tidied it, and thus has copyright on the derivative version.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL