Banning literary sequels

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By Bryony Lewicki
January 30, 2007
9:58 AM

Filed under: Authors, Publishing, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling

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Titlepage from the first edition of Les Miserables Mediabistro’s Galley Cat brings attention to an ongoing legal battle over the intellectual property rights to Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables.

Pierre Hugo, the author’s great-great-grandson, is fighting to remove two sequels written by Francois Ceresa from bookstore shelves. Currently, literary works are considered public domain 70 years after the author’s death, but Hugo says the new works violate the “spirit” of his ancestor’s work. Ceresa’s lawyers say banning the novels will infringe on freedom of expression. After six years of legal wrangling, France’s highest appeals court will make a decision today.

Quillblog is sure that either way this decision goes down, J.K Rowling, who has been hinting that she will kill off Harry Potter to protect the character from literary borrowing, will be thinking ‘I told you so.’

http://transylvaniandutch.com/td/ John

It is surprising if JK Rowling thinks killing off Harry will prevent sequels. Her novels are chock full of ghosts. And there is a lot of fan interest in the other characters. Her entire universe would have to go **boom** at the end of book 7 to prevent sequels. Of course, fifty (or seventy or whatever) years after she is dead, the fan interest in sequels may have subsided.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also convinced to bring Sherlock Holmes back to life once he had killed him off. JK Rowling could probably be convinced too.

On issue — this “spirit’ of the work concept appears to be French in scope, or perhaps European Community, and it definitely goes against Victor Hugo’s own philosophy

“Literature is the secretion of civilisation, poetry of the ideal. That is why literature is one of the wants of societies. That is why poetry is a hunger of the soul. That is why poets are the first instructors of the people. That is why Shakespeare must be translated in France. That is why Moli�re must be translated in England. That is why comments must be made on them. That is why there must be a vast public literary domain. “

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