A PLAGIARIST?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 6 January 1931, Page 7

A PLAGIARIST?

WELLS ACCUSED

ATTACK ON THE “OUTLINE” CURIOUS CASE On. the 27th September last Judge Raney in the High Court at loronto delivered judgment in that queer case; “Deeks v. Wells,” which has been barely mentioned in British newspapers. The plaintiff was a Miss Florence Deeks, of Toronto, and she charged the defendant, 11. G. Wells, of England, with “literary piracy,” in. oilier words, of wholesale plagiarism (says “W.G. ’ in John o’ London”). Everyone knows Mr Wells’s “Outline of History,” for it is famous. The case of Miss Deeks was this : In 1918, she avers, she completed a work called “The Web,” “the theme of which is feminism in history; the scope of her work is world-wide, and antedates the advent of man upon the earth,” a sort of world history. It was submitted to the Macmillan Company of Toronto in. August, 1918, with a view to publication; the manuscript was in their hands for something liko six months, when it was returned to Miss Deeks.

The allegations go on to say that two or three months after the manuscript was left with the Macmillan Company Mr Wells began tbe writing of his book, “Outline of History,” the publication rights being offered to Macmillans, of London, who declined the offer. The, “Outline” was published by George Newnes, Ltd., in (he following year. Six years later, that is, in 1925, Miss Deeks issued a writ against Mr Wells, affirming plagiarism, and virtually charging the Macmillan Company of Toronto, as the Judge remarked, with theft; the plaintiff’s theory being that Mr Wells saw and had the use of her manuscript while in Macmillans’ possession. The Judge declared: “The plaintiff is not able to point to any paragraph in “The Outline of History” that corresponds verbally with any paragraph in her manuscript, or even to any sentence ; but she alleged that the general plan of Mr Wells’s book established the use of her manuscript, and she points to the use of many ideas and words used by him. The absence of identical paragraphs or sentences, or even of phrases, only goes to establish, she says, the care that was taken by the pirate to conceal the source of his ideas and language.”

“EXPERT WITNESSES” The queer thing is that at the trial, just concluded, .“three literary men were called as “expert witnesses, and solemnly laboured to establish the fact of obvious plagiarism. One, Professor W. A. Irwin, Professor of Oriental Languages, “who had worked on the matter wi Me comparison of the two works Ta tlier intensively for six months,” prepared a memorandum, of sixty typewritten pages, which was used at the trial. He maintained that the conclusion oi plagiarism was “inescapable.” The document is a gem of literary criticism, from which the astonished Judge read copiously. Two other witnesses, Mr Burpee, editor and historian, and Mr G. S. Brett, Professor of Philosophy, “m a general way endorsed the evidence of Professor Irwin with less positiveness. Mr Wells’s evidence was a flat denial. He had never seen or heard of Miss Deeks’s manuscript. Similarly Macmillans denied that any improper use of the MS. had been made. The amazing thing is that such a long and cost.lv business should have been permitted at all. The examinations for discovery of evidence ran into “thousands of questions,” and the trial lasted four days. “Certainly,” said the Judge, the action ought not to have been brought to trial.” He ridiculed Professor Irwin’s “self-persuasion.” “Scores of pages of Professor Irwin’s memorandum are just solemn nonsense. His comparisons are without significance, and his argument and conclusions are alike puerile. Like Gratiano, Professor Irwin spoke ‘an infinite deal of nothing’ ; his reasons are not even ‘two grains ot wheat hidden in two bushels of chaff. They are not reasons at all. There could not be an original history of the world, unless perhaps the Compendium of Universal History, said to have been written by Macaulay before he was eight years old, might lay claim to that distinction.”

SERIOUS MATTER Judge Raney characterised Professor Irwin’s hypotheses ’as ‘"fantastic,’ and the plaintiff’s belief in the wickedness of the Macmillan Company of Toronto and Mr H. G. Wells as “an obsession. Said the Judge: ‘That she was not in a condition of mind to judge fairly of the very serious charges she was bringing against a reputable publishing house and an eminent and respectable authoi ou‘ r ht to have been obvious to her literary and legal advisers.’ Every decent person will agree that it is monstrous to spread such charges on the face of Court proceedings lasting more than five years. A commission in London heard a great deal of “solemn” evidence (the present writer was one witness). “A serious matter,” the Judge remarked, ‘that those charges have stood without, an opportunity to the defendants to publicly answer them for more than five years, that is to say, until the trial of the case. Not only was Mr Wells involved, but the Macmillan Company, George Ncwncs, Limited (the first publishers of the “Outline”), and Cassell and Co., the later publishers—all ot whom had to engage their own solicitors and counsel in the case. The costs run into a high figure, to say nothing ot the exasperation of wasted time ot veiy many people, and the intolerable annoy ance to the principals concerned. Iho case, the Judge declared, ought never to have been brought to trial.

MR WELLS’S FEAT Very amusing—and hiM 1 ’” flattering to Mr Wells—is one of the arguments advanced by the doughtv Professor liwin for his “inescapable conclusions. He maintains: “In about nine months lie (Mr Wells) produced a manuscript ot about half-a-million words surveying all the intricate and recondite subjects entailed in a history,not of mankind alone, but of the earth. It is simply stupendous. And if I understand aright his testimony he denies that he dictated to stenographers ; on the contrary, he wrote it entirely himself in longhand. To do that in a bare nine or ten months is a task that might well stagger one. The mere writing was exacting.” Highly flattering, we say, but, ol course, Professor Irwin with liis “solemn nonsense” sees here only sinister motives. A fantastic business, isn’t it—and an exasperating affair, which Mr Wells seejns to have borne with exemplary patience, and, we had nearly written., good humour.