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24 July 2009 10:00 AM
An Author's Rights
A.E. Hotchner is upset about changes to the latest edition of Ernest Hemingway's "A Movable Feast."
All publishers, Scribner included, are guardians of the books that authors entrust to them. Someone who inherits an author's copyright is not entitled to amend his work. There is always the possibility that the inheritor could write his own book offering his own corrections.
Ernest was very protective of the words he wrote, words that gave the literary world a new style of writing. Surely he has the right to have these words protected against frivolous incursion, like this reworked volume that should be called "A Moveable Book." I hope the Authors Guild is paying attention.
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