Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
To expand on my last post in a way possibly more relevant to most readers here:
1710 - Start of English copyright
1719 - First memorable English novel ( Robinson Crusoe)
Nine years isn't an exact correlation. It could have been a coincidence. I can't find any evidence Defoe got an advance before writing it  |
That's a good point but I wonder if "First memorable English novel" is realistic. Before that there were the "Canterbury Tales". Not a novel but much closer to a novel than it is to a collection of short stories. I think the form was starting to take shape. And there was "Don Quixote" as well as the writings of Milton and quite a few others.
I think the significance of "Robinson Crusoe" might be that it kind of completed the evolution to what we know today as a novel.
I think if we didn't have copyright we'd still have many of the great and even the good novels. What we'd have a lot less of are genre things.
There are a lot of reasons people write novels and I'm sure money is one of the important ones. But there's also the urge to create and the desire for fame and recognition. We'd certainly have fewer novels but I'm not sure how much of a loss that would really be.
Barry