Authors in public domain

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Rumpelstiltskin
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Authors in public domain

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

It was recently public domain day, when new works and creators enters public domain around the world. In USA this has only been going on for three or four years after a 20 year break. In most of the world, the rule is life plus 70s years. It used to be 50 years in most Europeans countries, like it is still some places, but the creeps in EU decided to go for 70 years, and other countries like Australia have eventually followed.

But 20 years later is still better than never, even if it was very frustrating considering how much could have been in public domain today. Still, it moves forward. So, just a list of authors (and a couple comic book creators) that have entered the domain since 2000 (in countries where the expiration date is life plus 70 years):

Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger)
Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book and Kim)
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
Arthur Machen (one of the big names in supernatural fiction)
Algernon Blackwood (British ghost story writer)
Robert E. Howard (Conan, Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis)
H.P. Lovecraft (At the Mountains of Madness and others)
Johanna Spyri (Heidi)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)
H. G. Wells (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, Pellucidar, John Carter)
A. Merritt (American fantasy author; The Moon Pool, The Metal Monster, The Ship of Ishtar)
Olaf Stapledon (British philosopher and sci-fi author; Star Maker and Last and First Men)
George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1984)
David Lindsay (A Voyage to Arcturus)
Virginia Woolf (English writer)
Stanley G. Weinbaum (one of Isaac Asimiv's three supernovas" in science fiction; A Martian Odyssey and others)
J.-H. Rosny (the most famous science fiction author in France after Jules Verne)
Thorne Smith (Topper (The Jovial Ghosts) and The Night Life of the Gods)
E. R. Eddison (The Worm Ouroboros)
Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit and others)
Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland and others)
George Herriman (Krazy Kat)
James Joyce (Dubliners and Finnegans Wake)
M. R. James (another prominent British ghost story author)

Among famous children's authors, there are still four from last century, most of them being decades away: A. A. Milne, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Roald Dahl, maybe also Elsa Beskow (in addition to some lesser known authors like John Masefield).
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