The other Prince and the other Betty

[a***@tiscali.co.uk]

Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK edition
of "The Prince and Betty"? The only copies ever reprinted are the
American version, bastardised with half of "Psmith Journalist". It
strikes me as bizzare, when you consider:

1) effectively publishers are duping the public into buying one-and-a-
half copies of the Psmith book.
2) "The Prince and Betty" #UK was serialised in the same editions of
"The Strand" as Conan Doyle's perennial favourite "The Lost World",
and what with this no doubt being collectable, it can't be argued that
the story is in any sense lost
3) "The Prince and Betty" #UK was published as a book by Mills and
Boon, who are still going as strong as ever, without their imprint
having died over the last century.

Come on.. come on... 2012 is the hundredth anniversary of the book's
publication. Perfect timing....

[Calvin]

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK edition
of "The Prince and Betty"?

Try here:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781604500776/Prince-and-Betty---from-the-Manor-Wodehouse-Collection

I bought my copy just before Christmas. Only two gaps in my collection
now- Louder and Funnier (expensive) and The Globe By The Way Book
(expensive and rare).

Pip Pip,
Uncle Woggly

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Calvin

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK
edition of "The Prince and Betty"?

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781604500776/Prince-and-Betty---from-the-Manor-Wodehouse-Collection

I bought that very edition, thinking it would be the UK version; it's not.
The American newspaperman Smith is Psmith, smuggled in from Psmith
Journalistm which makes it the US version.

[Chuck C.]

Post by Mike Schilling

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK
edition of "The Prince and Betty"?

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781604500776/Prince-and-Betty--...

I bought that very edition, thinking it would be the UK version; it's not.
The American newspaperman Smith is Psmith, smuggled in from Psmith
Journalistm which makes it the US version.

I just looked up "The Prince and Betty" on abebooks.com and found
several listings for the UK edition, together with an exhaustive (if
confusing) explanation of the various states of this book by Tony
Ring.
Cheers,
CC

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Chuck C.

Post by Mike Schilling

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK
edition of "The Prince and Betty"?

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781604500776/Prince-and-Betty--...

I bought that very edition, thinking it would be the UK version;
it's not. The American newspaperman Smith is Psmith, smuggled in
from Psmith Journalistm which makes it the US version.

I just looked up "The Prince and Betty" on abebooks.com and found
several listings for the UK edition, together with an exhaustive (if
confusing) explanation of the various states of this book by Tony
Ring.

Are you sure it's the original UK edition? My understanding is that all
recently published editions, even in the UK, are the version originally
printed in the US, and I've never been willing to pay the price to have one
shipped from the UK and find out it's the wrong one. On the other hand, I
just found the original UK edition online at
http://www.archive.org/details/princebetty00wodeuoft .

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Mike Schilling
Are you sure it's the original UK edition? My understanding is that
all recently published editions, even in the UK, are the version
originally printed in the US, and I've never been willing to pay the
price to have one shipped from the UK and find out it's the wrong
one. On the other hand, I just found the original UK edition online
at http://www.archive.org/details/princebetty00wodeuoft .

Sorry, no, that's the US edition too.

[john wolfe]

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK edition
of "The Prince and Betty"? The only copies ever reprinted are the
American version, bastardised with half of "Psmith Journalist". It
strikes me as bizzare [....]

I think I have a possible explanation. I've only read the US version, and I
must say it's - probably not only to me - among the five weakest Wodehouse
books and a strong competitor and likely candidate for the top position in
this respect. What makes it just barely readable for PG aficionados are the
parts taken from 'Psmith Journalist'. The Prince and even more so Betty are
so un-Wodehousian boring that I think it's sound policy not to re-edit a
whole book about them.


J.K.-H.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by john wolfe

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK
edition of "The Prince and Betty"? The only copies ever reprinted
are the American version, bastardised with half of "Psmith
Journalist". It strikes me as bizzare [....]

I think I have a possible explanation. I've only read the US version,
and I must say it's - probably not only to me - among the five
weakest Wodehouse books and a strong competitor and likely candidate
for the top position in this respect. What makes it just barely
readable for PG aficionados are the parts taken from 'Psmith
Journalist'. The Prince and even more so Betty are so un-Wodehousian
boring that I think it's sound policy not to re-edit a whole book
about them.

The Overlook Press advertises its Wodehouse books as being based on the
first UK edition. They haven't done The Prince and Betty yet, but when they
do, it might well be the UK version.

[Neil Midkiff]

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK edition
of "The Prince and Betty"? The only copies ever reprinted are the
American version, bastardised with half of "Psmith Journalist".

Besides all the other good reasons mentioned, one very important one
comes to mind.

The US version, since it was published before 1923, is in the public
domain in the USA, so it can be reprinted in America or its e-text
posted on American-based Web sites without copyright or royalty
restrictions.

The British version was not published in the USA. It remains in
copyright because its copyright term is based on the author's lifetime
plus seventy years (formerly 50 years, but extended by international
convention). So it could be reprinted only with the permission of, and
by paying royalties to, the Wodehouse estate.

-Neil Midkiff

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Neil Midkiff

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK
edition of "The Prince and Betty"? The only copies ever reprinted
are the American version, bastardised with half of "Psmith
Journalist".

Besides all the other good reasons mentioned, one very important one
comes to mind.
The US version, since it was published before 1923, is in the public
domain in the USA, so it can be reprinted in America or its e-text
posted on American-based Web sites without copyright or royalty
restrictions.
The British version was not published in the USA. It remains in
copyright because its copyright term is based on the author's lifetime
plus seventy years (formerly 50 years, but extended by international
convention). So it could be reprinted only with the permission of,
and by paying royalties to, the Wodehouse estate.

Yes, but this is also true of most of Wodehouse's books, including all the
Jeeves novels, all the Blandings novels except the first one, all the
Mulliner collections, all the Uncle Fred novels, etc. There is no shortage
of publishers for those.

[Neil Midkiff]

Post by Neil Midkiff

Post by a***@tiscali.co.uk
Can anybody tell me why it is impossible to get hold of the UK edition
of "The Prince and Betty"? The only copies ever reprinted are the
American version, bastardised with half of "Psmith Journalist".

Besides all the other good reasons mentioned, one very important one
comes to mind.
The US version, since it was published before 1923, is in the public
domain in the USA, so it can be reprinted in America or its e-text
posted on American-based Web sites without copyright or royalty
restrictions.
The British version was not published in the USA. It remains in
copyright because its copyright term is based on the author's lifetime
plus seventy years (formerly 50 years, but extended by international
convention). So it could be reprinted only with the permission of, and
by paying royalties to, the Wodehouse estate.

I happened to see a friend today who teaches copyright law at a local
university. He informed me that America and Britain had a mutual
copyright treaty from 1891 onward, extending to authors in each other's
country the same rights as their own authors had. So the British
edition of _The Prince and Betty_ started being protected under American
copyright law at the time it was published in England in 1912, for the
standard 28-year, once-renewable terms of the 1909 American copyright
act. That expired after 56 years, at the end of 1968.

So both versions of _The Prince and Betty_ are in the public domain in
the USA, and both versions are still under copyright in the UK and in
other countries that were signers of the Berne copyright convention as
of 1912. (The USA didn't sign on to the Berne rules until 1989.)

Sorry to have passed along the wrong information yesterday.

-Neil