What's a Book You Wish Was in the Public Domain?

Scarbo · Post by **Scarbo** » February 8th, 2021, 4:21 pm

I don't have too terribly long to wait since it was published in 1928, but I'm looking forward to Jessie Redmon Fauset's Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral eventually being PD. It was the best book I read in the year that I read it!

Her novel There is Confusion was published early enough to be PD, but I haven't seen it on Gutenberg or the Internet Archive.

Post by **annise** » February 8th, 2021, 5:47 pm

The 1924 edition of "there is confusion" is available on Haithi https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=miun.abr7583.0001.001&view=1up&seq=9

Anne

Scarbo · Post by **Scarbo** » February 9th, 2021, 3:20 pm

Thank you, Anne! I've added it to my possible future BC projects list.

Another book that I wish were in the public domain is Helen Corke's Neutral Ground (1933). Corke was a friend of D.H. Lawrence, and Neutral Ground is her fictionalization of a real episode from her life that Lawrence also used for his novel The Trespasser. I'm having the darnedest time tracking down a print copy, so it's unfortunate that it's not already PD and digitized somewhere!

Bookworm360 · Post by **Bookworm360** » February 10th, 2021, 6:06 pm

Ooo, have I got a list for this one...
Anne of Windy Poplars
Anne of Ingleside
The Neverending Story
Momo
Among others—many others....

DeonEva · Post by **DeonEva** » February 13th, 2021, 6:37 am

annise wrote: ↑
February 8th, 2021, 5:47 pm
The 1924 edition of "there is confusion" is available on Haithi https://babel.hathitrust.org/employee monitoring /cgi/pt?id=miun.abr7583.0001.001&view=1up&seq=9

Anne

to be honest, this is the first time I've heard about this book, thanks for the advice!

I would really like to leave something from Edgar Alan Poe. Although in a sense, his books are works of art. like The Murders in the Rue Morgue or The Black Cat. I really like his stories, very dark and bewitching. and also To Kill a Mockingbird. these books are rather depressing and gloomy, I read them when I was 15-16 years old.
it's very strange that now I like some kind of novels or dramas more. but I really want to return to reading such masterpieces.

JayKitty76 · Post by **JayKitty76** » February 13th, 2021, 11:30 am

I want The Chronicles of Narnia and To Kill a Mockingbird to be PD. I was never that crazy about LoTR, not sure why but I’m not too big on fantasy (a couple exceptions.)
I know the fantasized PD date is 1971 here or something but I’m absolutely dying for the Harry Potter series to be PD. I won’t be alive to see it public domain, a thought that makes me extremely sad.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 13th, 2021, 1:42 pm

I'd like to have a chance to record what's been called "The Greenwich Village trilogy" (published between 1967 and 1970): The Butterfly Kid, by Chester Anderson; The Unicorn Girl, by Michael Kurland; and The Probability Pad, by T.A. Waters. Humorous, romantic, mildly alternate-world novels, set in the psychedelic sixties. I love them, especially The Unicorn Girl.

"Look," I said, "isn't that something in the road ahead?" .... ."How are you puncuating that?" Chester asked suspiciously.

Peter

TheDinosaurPlanet · Post by **TheDinosaurPlanet** » February 18th, 2021, 3:58 pm

"The Story of the Trapp Family Singers" by Maria von Trapp. I've been reading it on Archive.org, but since it isn't pd, it can't be recorded

. It's a good (true) story though.

Bookworm360 · Post by **Bookworm360** » February 19th, 2021, 9:15 am

Oooo, that’s what The Sound of Music was based on, right? It must be great!

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » February 20th, 2021, 2:00 am

I liked the suggestion of the poems of W. H. Auden - "O Unicorn among the cedars, To whom no magic charm can lead us .... "

Some more favourites (just to get you started)

Dylan Thomas - "Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,. Robed in the long friends,. The grains beyond age....

Cavafy -"When you set out for Ithaka ask that your way be long, full of adventure, full of instruction..."

Kenneth Slessor - " Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs The convoys of dead sailors come...."

Best,

Barbara

Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" would be PD in this hypothetical public domain year

If as the OP suggested " anything written before 1971 "

TheDinosaurPlanet · Post by **TheDinosaurPlanet** » February 20th, 2021, 10:37 am

Bookworm360 wrote: ↑
February 19th, 2021, 9:15 am
Oooo, that’s what The Sound of Music was based on, right? It must be great!

Yep, though Sound of Music took a LOT of liberties with it. It's a great story.

zachh · Post by **zachh** » February 20th, 2021, 1:12 pm

I'm looking forward to when I can record Hot Water by P. G. Wodehouse. He's one of my favorite authors, and that's one of my favorites among his books. Just 7 more years to wait.