Mr. Fulton says that I “assert” that the bundle of letters was put together 
and distributed by Bob Hirst of the Mark Twain Papers and that I "allege" 
that Bob Hirst gave copies to only four people. He then goes on to describe 
the bundle in detail, and to claim that he had proper permission to publish 
from it.

Let me be clear: Bob Hirst himself told me that he put that bundle together 
and distributed it to four people, and he gave me explicit permission to say 
so in my review. Unlike Joe Fulton, I took a moment to contact Bob Hirst and 
Alan Gribben, and by doing so I obtained a much fuller account of the story 
than what is presented by Fulton in his book. Also, unlike Joe Fulton, I 
showed a copy of my review to both Hirst and Gribben before it appeared in 
the Forum and they both approved it. I consider the confirmation of sources 
and fact-checking not only be prudent, but a matter of best practice,

Mr. Fulton did not need to describe the contents of the bundle of letters; I 
have a complete copy and read the entire 214pp. as part of my routine 
preparation for writing the review. Mr. Fulton’s claim that fair use extends 
to extensive quoting, for publication and commercial gain, from unpublished 
personal letters written by living individuals, may or may not be correct. I 
am not an attorney (but I prudently consulted two when writing this review) 
and the legal case involving unpublished private letters written by J. D. 
Salinger (Salinger v Random House, 1987), the 1992 revisions to copyright 
law, and the information provided at 
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/  are all worth examining. Mr. 
Fulton asserts that he had permission to publish those letters from the Mark 
Twain Archives at Elmira College; if that is accurate--and not the result of 
a misunderstanding--it was not their permission to give. The letter-writers 
hold the copyright to those letters, not Elmira College; therefore, Mr. 
Fulton should have sought permission from the letter-writers.

The issue of the possible defamation of an individual or institution is not 
one that will be decided by me or Fulton, and is an entirely separate legal 
matter from any issues of infringement. In my opinion, common courtesy 
should have been Fulton's guide, and he should have asked his colleagues 
about the things he quotes so liberally in his book. He might have learned 
more of the story. I stand by every word of my review.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB
*************************
You may browse our books at:
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com


-----Original Message----- 
From: Barbara Schmidt
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2017 6:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fulton's response to book review by Kevin Mac Donnell

I am posting the following on behalf of Joe B. Fulton.
~~~~~


In his January 30, 2017, review of my book _Mark Twain under Fire:
Reception and Reputation, Criticism and Controversy, 1851-2015_, Kevin Mac
Donnell criticized my inclusion of certain material in my book. I feel that
clarification is necessary. As Mac Donnell said in his review, there is
more to the story.


_Mark Twain under Fire_ is a history of Mark Twain criticism from its
earliest stages to very recent criticism. In the book, I rely on many
archival documents to discuss the forces that have contributed--and still
contribute--to the scholarship on America's foremost writer and cultural
icon. It is possible that, reading Mac Donnell's review, a reader might
form the impression that my use of quotations in illuminating the
controversy surrounding the Mark Twain Project on pages 142-144 of _Mark
Twain under Fire_ may infringe on copyright and may even be potentially
defamatory. This would be an unfortunate, and inaccurate, impression.


Let me begin by describing the material. The correspondence written by many
individuals to many different people was bundled by someone (Mac Donnell
asserts it was Robert Hirst, director of the Mark Twain Project), given a
title page, consecutively paginated, and dated July 16, 1985. Mac Donnell
alleges that the person who bundled these letters together distributed them
to four Twain scholars.


Two of these copies were eventually donated to the Mark Twain Archives at
Elmira College in Elmira, New York, where they have been available to
scholars for years. Both have title pages and are dated. The copy I used
was from the Louis J. Budd Papers and has all the earmarks of a book: a
cover illustration, a title, a subtitle that calls it "A Selected Edition
in Photofacsimile," a table of contents, chapter titles and epigraphs, and
consecutive pagination. I refer to this collection in my book with the
abbreviation _MTPC_, from part of the title on the cover: "The Mark Twain
Project's Correspondence." I quote from only ten documents out of this
214-page bundle. All ten are on letterhead, one from the United States
Information Agency. All are essential to the critical history I was writing.


I quoted from these ten documents briefly, within fair use guidelines, and
with the permission of the Mark Twain Archives. As for whether or not any
of these documents are defamatory, I do not take sides in my book as to the
charges levelled in those documents. I quoted from the documents in the
_MTPC_ because they illuminate a dynamic within this critical community
that is essential to the subject of my history. As Mac Donnell pointed out
in his review, one _must_ discuss the Mark Twain Project in a book like
_Mark Twain under Fire_; I would argue, too, that the Mark Twain Project
has exerted such a tremendous influence on scholarship and criticism, that
no history of Mark Twain criticism can be written without appreciating the
conflicts that occurred during the 1980s among important members of this
critical community. In my treatment, I believe I approached the matter
legally, fairly, and responsibly.


Dr. Joe B. Fulton, Baylor University