Richard van Emden facsimiles

[Open Bolt]

I hope someone will put me right here, as Richard van Emden is one of our great historians; but why is there a tendency to publish facsimile books with the author's name replaced by Emden's? For example 'This Bloody Place: The Incomparables at Gallipoli' was written by Captain Albert Mure and published in 1919; but in 2015 his name is no longer on the cover. Amazon even specifies Emden as 'author.' I might assume the publisher has said this will not be commercially viable without his name and so it is in everyone's interests to publish like this; but there are several examples where the real author gets at least second-billing on his own book.

[Gardenerbill]

That is very curious, the western front association has a copy with the author as Major A.H. Mure otherwise the cover is almost identical?

 

https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-book-reviews/this-bloody-place-with-the-incomparable-29th/

[Open Bolt]

Curious indeed, I had not seen that cover.

 

 

[Michelle Young]

Richard is a member of the forum, posts as Forton perhaps he can answer this question? 

[Marilyne]

I suppose it has to do with commercialisation of the book, but even so... keeping the author's name on the cover seems like the right thing to do.

 

M.

[seaJane]

Is the name of the cover designer the same in each case? If not, copyright on the earlier version may have been breached.

[Gardenerbill]

The titles are also subtly different: 'The Incomparable 29th' and 'The Incomparables at Gallipoli'.

[Bernard_Lewis]

FWIW my 'Swansea Pals' title appeared in one instance on Amazon with a book front-cover that bore no relation to the 'real' one, but did feature my name as author. Not sure why... No idea why a book written by someone else is credited to a different author. Odd!

 

Bernard 

[MaureenE]

The book by Major Mure originally had the title With the incomparable 29th and is available online

https://archive.org/details/withincomparable00murerich/page/n5 

 

The book with the title This Bloody Place is a reprint edition with a foreword by Richard Van Emden.

I suppose with a reprint edition the publishers can market it how they wish, and perhaps do it differently for different markets

 

Cheers

Maureen

Edited 19 March , 2019 by Maureene

[Forton]

Hi

i have just noticed this discussion and thought i’d better reply.

it was a publishing mistake that Mure’s name was not on the cover, pure and simple. I am not sure how it happened but it should have been there. I did receive a lovely letter from Mure’s daughter to say she was delighted that the book had been republished and she did not mention the error, for which I was very grateful! 

[Open Bolt]

Thank you for this - good to get it cleared up. I think it fair to say we all appreciate these works finding their way back into print. Keep up the good work!