FALLING INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN ...


In countries which have a "life plus 70 year" copyright term for authors' works, New Year's Day each year sees a batch of authors' works falling out of copyright protection. Among those who died in 1935, and whose works are no longer protected in life + 70 jurisdictions as from tomorrow morning are the following:

* French anti-militarist and revolutionary writer Henri Barbusse (right);

* Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior, distinguished American jurist sometimes known as The Great Dissenter, pictured (left) as a young man;

* Lawrence of Arabia (a.k.a. T. E. Lawrence, right, real name Thomas Edward Lawrence), the Englishman who helped the Arabs fight the Ottoman empire for their independence and who wrote The Seven Pillars of Wisdom;

* Alban Berg, the depressive Austrian composer (painted, left by Schonberg), who wrote a very moving Violin Concerto;

* Paul Dukas, the French composer whose Sorcerer's Apprentice was immortalised by Walt Disney in the original version of Fantasia (the apprentice being Mickey Mouse's best-known film role);

* Auguste Escoffier, left, celebrated French chef and author, known as the King of Chefs and the Chef of Kings.

The IPKat says, feel free to post the names of your favourite died-in-1935 authors, artists, composers and dramatists in the Comments slot below. Merpel says, what about the "life-plus-50 years" countries? Let's hear it for people who diied in 1955 too!