Twilight of Dictators

One by one they are passing away in the smaller countries; the stronger ones begin to tremble on their thrones. The hundredth anniversary of the beginnings of a libertarian movement which spread throughout the world, sees again the struggle for human rights progressing.

The world seems to be recovering its sanity.

George Seldes, 1931.
Can These Things Be?

Sawdust Caesar

I was able to acquire a copy of Sawdust Caesar a few months ago on Amazon.com. It was in pretty good condition for a book that was printed in 1935. I guess it was sitting in a small book store somewhere for years and probably had rarely been touched until someone decided to sell it. The bind shows some sun bleaching while the remainder of the cover is its natural red. The book jacket was missing. The pages within the book are in great shape. But after reading the book (all 459 pages) the binding began coming undone because it was made with some kind of fabric which was frail after many years. The hardcover is on the verge of falling off.

So as it is, it will definitely fall apart sooner or later. My basic idea is to destroy it for a good reason. I want to digitize the entire book but to get a great quality scans, I will need to remove and scan each page one by one.

The problem with this idea is that I also want to distribute the digitized book so others can read it, however I can't seem to find any concrete information on the copyright status of the book. Although it was published by Harpers and Brothers, the company has since merged to form HarpersCollins. HarpersCollins has no information on Sawdust Caesar at all on their website so I'm assuming they no longer hold any copyright or publishers rights on the book.

If you have any information on the copyright status of Sawdust Caesar, please e-mail me at adimwit@hotmail.com.

Thanks.