Book with no copyright or publication date

[Steve]

I have acquired a book from an antique bookseller but as is typical for many books published in Britain around the turn of the last century, it does not contain either a specific copyright or publication date.

The book is a double volume entitled: Stories of The Victoria Cross and The Humane Society by Frank Mundell – The following information may prove useful:

A reply from the bookseller to my query about the book states: “The work is Victorian (Stories of The Humane Society was originally published in 1895 and Stories of The Victoria Cross in 1890) and the book is clearly turn of the century, but the later editions were undated”.

Enquiries made via my County Library Information Team could not provide a definitive publication date. They were able to locate examples of various versions of this double volume where the publication date is likely to have been anywhere from ca 1900 through to 1909. There appears to be no listings of publication dates available for the series of books produced by The Sunday School Union which would help to verify the date of this volume.

In addition, some further relevant information :

From the final chapter of Stories of The Victoria Cross the author writes: From the commencement of the war to the time when this is being written, in the early spring of 1901...

From the penultimate chapter of Stories of The Royal Humane Society the author writes: A “son of the sea” again won the Stanhope Medal for 1907.

The final section from Stories of The Royal Humane Society gives listings of the recipients who were awarded medals by the society for 1905-07 and for 1884-1904

There is a hand-written dedication at the front of the book dated Xmas 1909 which gives a recipient’s name and the name of the Sunday School.

Are the references to the various dates (as detailed above) in the volume, sufficient evidence that the volume is likely to have been published around the dates mentioned in the text?

If not, I would appreciate any advice or ideas on how I might further search for or determine a publication/copyright date that would allow me to record it.

I did produce a book by this author last year which was available at Gutenberg and I am (obviously) really keen to record these two books as well.

Thanks

Steve

[Sue Anderson]

Hi Steve,

Hi. These two references to editions of the books in question, from 1902 and 1906, might help to establish the period when these books went through their several editions. I believe that there have been some situations where no copyright claim was printed on the title page of a book, and the LibriVox MC has accepted a photocopy of the title page as evidence of lack of claim to copyright. Maybe you can broach this approach with the admins. Since your book was a Xmas 1909 gift, you could posit 1909 as the publication date.

https://books.google.com/books?id=3ElKAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA91&dq=Stories+of+The+Victoria+Cross+and+The+Humane+Society&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjTudak99XbAhULG3wKHX86A-UQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Stories%20of%20The%20Victoria%20Cross%20and%20The%20Humane%20Society&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=6mseAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA9-PA48&dq=Stories+of+The+Victoria+Cross+and+The+Humane+Society&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilypDN8tXbAhXNzFMKHXLvChkQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q=Stories%20of%20The%20Victoria%20Cross%20and%20The%20Humane%20Society&f=false

[Steve]

Hi. These two references to editions of the books in question, from 1902 and 1906, might help to establish the period when these books went through their several editions. I believe that there have been some situations where no copyright claim was printed on the title page of a book, and the LibriVox MC has accepted a photocopy of the title page as evidence of lack of claim to copyright. Maybe you can broach this approach with the admins. Since your book was a Xmas 1909 gift, you could posit 1909 as the publication date.

Hi Sue

I appreciate the information that you've given here. I'll hopefully have a chance to check it out over the weekend.

When I'm ready to record I'll see what the Admin / MC opinion is.

Thanks

Steve