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Orphaned books
I was digging through my old paperbacks this morning and came across two books that are classic examples of orphaned works. Orphaned books is the great gap in copyright law that most acknowledge as an issue, but few are willing to actually address. Basically, these are books where the author is dead and the actual copyright holder is either unknown or basically indifferent to the work. Thus, the books are unavailable except in a used format and there is not real way for them to get back into print.
The books in this case are the Merlin's Ring series by H. Warner Munn who died in 1981. Merlin's Godson, published in 1976 is a combined reprint of two of his earlier works - King of the World's Edge first published in 1939 and The Ship from Atlantis first published in 1967. Merlin's Ring was published in 1974, was part of Ballantine's Adult Fantasy series and is generally considered Munn's masterwork. It was last in print in 1981.
Odds are pretty good that most people who are younger than me will never have heard of either book much less read it, it's been out of print for 40 years and as far as I know, it's never been released in hard back. Even if re-released, neither book is likely to generate much revenue.
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