Re: author needs public domain examples

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000, Stephen Fishman <sfish55[_at_]yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I'm in the process of writing a guide to the public
> domain for the lay person that will be published by
> Nolo Press later this year. I would like to include in
> the book real examples of people who have successfully
> used public domain materials, such as public domain:
>
> writings
> music
> art
> architecture
> maps
> choreography
> computer software
> databases
> photography
> film and video.
>
> If you have examples you'd like to share with the
> reading public, please e-mail me. Anyone who
> participates will be given a free copy of the book (a
> $35 value) and be mentioned in the acknowledgements.

Hi,

Public Domain material:

We have reintroduced the novel and short stories of Selma Lagerof, first woman to win a Nobel and first one from Sweden. She wrote Gosta Berling's Saga. It has been out of print 60 years. This book is of world class literature. We printed about 1500 copies, and sold out within two years primarily to the world-wide audience of Amazon.com. The Sweden's government Svenska Institute gave a nice advance order for 200 copies which helped, but primarily we flew it ourselves. We reprinted the book with another 1500 in December and are getting great orders once again from Amazon and others. The book is being used in a Scandinavian studies class in Boulder, U of Colorado. Scholars have asked us if they could retranslate Selma's works for us to publish and we said no. The contacts in Sweden said a modernized updating of language would change the flavor of her work and we agreed. Selma has a spiritual component to her work. My late husband, John Zug, an editor, thanked me for introducing him to her work three months before he died of lung cancer. He assisted with editing The Girl from the Marsh Croft, a Lagerlof title.

We are releasing her two volume work The Adventures of Nils and The Further Adventures of Nils Holgersson (the little boy miniaturized to fly over Sweden with the geese, thus teaching geography to the children of Sweden) this spring as two books in one. (The Ph.D scholars have not contacted us about retranslating this classic which is a children's book.)

We also brought out Weird Tales from Northern Seas by Jonas Lie. Out of print for most of the 20th century. We just ordered a second printing.

We are a publisher specializing in ethnic materials for 21 years. We find our University of Iowa Libraries a wonderful resource. Books in their collection from the 19th century yielded all kinds of wonderful line art engravings we have used primarily in books about the Czechs.

Hope this is the kind of material you want. If you need more information, send a note. We have a web site penfield[_at_]penfield-press.com and a credit card secure bookstore.

Thanks,

Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret
President
Penfield Press
215 Brown Street
Iowa City, Iowa 52245
<penfield[_at_]penfield-press.com> Received on Mon Jan 31 2000 - 19:16:30 GMT