Sherlock Holmes has solved his greatest mystery yet. It only took 125 years, but Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective is in the public domain. A federal judge has ruled that all Sherlock Holmes stories published before January 1, 1923 are no longer under U.S. copyright law.
Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Copyright
The other work of a creative
“What you might call an invisible economy of house sitters exists across the country,” writes Aaron Gilbreath in the Paris Review. His account of the generosity and clean counter-spaces of friends is a humbling reminder of the flip side of creative work.
Self Publishing Textbooks
A Minnesota high school is saving money on textbooks… by writing its own.
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‘Dazzling’ State of Wonder
Ron Charles calls Ann Patchett’s new State of Wonder “another dazzling work” with touches of Heart of Darkness and The Island of Doctor Moreau.
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Poor Gatsby
The Great Gatsby debuted in 1925 to poor sales and mediocre reviews. So how did it become one of the most famous novels in America? At Slate, Cristina Hartmann explains how Fitzgerald’s opus, which netted the author royalties worth a grand total of $13 in his lifetime, went on to become a classic. Related: our own Bill Morris on a book about the novel by Sarah Churchwell. (h/t The Paris Review Daily)
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The Perils of Word Aversion
Moist-haters, unite: why do some people despise the sound of certain words?
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