The Mabinogion
Mar 17th, 2007 by Bookworm
The Mabinogion
The more that I read, the more often I run into out of print books which I simply must have. The last time was when I was researching the Mabinogion, a famous collection of Medieval Welsh stories which I can not recommend enough to any fan of the fabled and fantastic. Anyway, I found several out of print books of scholarship on this in the University of Michigan library, where I was doing my research.
My favorite one traces the evolution of all of the myths and threads of stories through several languages and folk traditions. Although it was over my head at the time, I have since been studying ancient languages and mythology, and now would like to read it more than anything.
Unfortunately, I live across the country, and all of my searches on out of print books online sites has come to nothing. This is not just an out of print book, but one which had a limited printing in the first place, a scholarly book which was probably someones graduate thesis, circulated among a small number of his colleagues.
Although many out of print books can be found, something this fabulously obscure is almost impossible to dig up.
What really frustrates me is out of print books whose authors are still living. Sometimes authors let their books go out of print for some commercial reason, despite the fact that they have plenty of fans to support them who would love to see the book again. The terrible thing about these out of print books is that, although no one is currently trying to sell them, they still do not enter the public domain where they can be freely copied.
I think this is stupid. Sure, if you make a work of art, you should have the right to make money on it. But if you make something and have no desire to sell it, or make it available to the public anymore, those with it should be allowed to freely trade it. After all, why should authors and publishing companies be allowed to horde precious out of print books and keep them from those of us who would like to delight in their pages.
It just doesn’t seem fair, or practical, especially in light of the internet. Now that we can make out of print books available to everyone through things like project Gutenberg, it seems long past time to change our reactionary copyright laws and make information free!
Buy The Mabinogion (Penguin Classics)
