Dorothy Parker Lawsuit Turns Full Vicious Circle

By Ron Hogan on July 9, 2007 1:38 PM

Back in March, Sarah reported on the lawsuit over the organizing of Dorothy Parker‘s uncollected poems, in which Stu Silverstein is accusing Penguin of ripping off the way he arranged the poems in Not Much Fun when they published them as a section of The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker. With the trial set to begin this month, TheStreet.com revisits the case, with senior writer Lawrence Carrel summarizing the case—which was actually decided against Penguin in 2003, though an appellate court vacated aspects of the decision and remanded it back to the current jurisdiction—with some additional details on the Penguin execs who are expected to testify, including worldwide chair John Makinson and Penguin Group USA leader David Shanks.

There’s also a melodramatic claim from law professor Peter Jaszi that “if Penguin is found to have ridden over someone who was a creative person, and disregarded their rights, that would be a black eye for its reputation.” Which is true as far as it goes, but let’s face it: If James Frey and Kaavya Viswanathan didn’t bring their publishers to ruin, this case isn’t going to cause much of a public ripple for Penguin, either, and I’m willing to predict the effect of agents and authors who actively maintain a “screw those guys on Hudson Street” attitude will be insignificant. (Especially since Penguin already has been found to have disregarded Silverstein’s rights, and I’m willing to bet you haven’t thought much about it in the last four years, unless you’re Silverstein or his agent.) Jaszi is absolutely right when he says “publishers and other enterprises in the creative sector want to be, and need to be, respectful of the talent and creativity of authors,” and I’m not about to condone Penguin’s behavior in this matter; all I’m saying is that the publishing industry is generally quick to absorb the negative backlash and get back to business.