II_A Book About the Theater

But altho the dramatizing of novels was less uncommon a century or two

ago than the novelizing of plays, neither was frequent and neither of

them was in any way prohibited by law. That is to say, the novel and the

play were held to be so different that the novelist could not prevent

the dramatist from borrowing his stories, and the playwright could not

forbid the writer of prose fiction from taking over his plots. Even the

dramatizing of novels was so uncommon that the earlier story-tellers

were not moved to protest when they saw their fictions employed by the

playwrights; in fact, they were often inclined to accept this as a

compliment to their original invention. Marmontel, for instance, in the

preface to a late edition of his 'Moral Tales,' pointed with pride to

the fact that one of these prose narratives had been turned into a play,

and suggested complacently that there were other stories in his

collection worthy of the same fate. Tennyson borrowed the story of his

'Dora' from Miss Mitford; and Charles Reade had no scruple in making a

play out of Tennyson's poem. It must be admitted that Reade's attitude

was rather inconsistent, for he writhed in pain when one of his own

novels was cut into dialog and put on the stage without his permission,

and yet he himself made plays out of novels by Anthony Trollope and by

Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett without asking their leave, and without

heed to their subsequent protests against his high-handed proceeding.

Apparently, when he was the aggressor he thought that he was doing a

service to his victims.

When Reade was guilty of this offense against the developing literary

morals of the nineteenth century, he was probably within his legal

rights, since the British law had not then advanced to the point of

recognizing the author's complete ownership of the fiction he had

created. This defect has been remedied at last, and in the existing

States authors are assumed to reserve to themselves every privilege

which they do not specifically deprive themselves of; and they need no

longer announce that they desire to retain all rights for their own

profit. Both in the British code and in the American the novelist has

now the sole privilege of making a play out of his story, and the

dramatist has the sole privilege of making a novel out of his play.

_Dramatization_ is a word of respectable antiquity, and the

corresponding word, _novelization_, has now been legally recognized as a

distinctive term. The authors had felt a wrong when others could legally

make money out of a plot they had invented; and they asserted a moral

right to control their own works whatever might be the form of

presentation. The progress of legal reform was slow, as it usually is,

but it was also certain. The moral right has now become a legal right of

which the original author may avail himself or not, as he pleases. He

may, if he chooses, dramatize his own novel and novelize his own play;

or, if he prefers, he can sell the permission to rehandle his material

to a professional playwright or to a professional storyteller.