Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00218)

Could the material that John Cooper developed been posted on the Internet 
for anyone to download so that the intermediary of a publisher and all the 
associated issues could have been totally avoided.

This also would have eliminated the publishing delay dramatically and 
allowed freer and wider availability of the material to anyone interested.

The advent of Internet has opened up this opportunity which was not 
available in the pre-Internet era.

mkr



At 08:57 PM 04/07/04 +1100, gregory wrote:
>John frequently said that he had required a clause giving him complete
>editorial control over the publication of the HPB letters for which he
>was contracted by TPH, Wheaton, because he was concerned that Adyar (or
>its Wheaton manifestation) might want to censor the text of the letters
>or John's commentary on them. After John's death, his family essentially
>imposed only one restriction on the TPH regarding the publication of the
>manuscript (which had already been sent to John Algeo): that no change,
>addition, deletion, alteration or variation be made within the text
>without the family's permission. The family acknowledged that spelling,
>grammar, syntax, historical errors, punctuation, etc, etc might be
>corrected - this is a standard role and right of any publisher. Material
>that was not claimed to be (i) HPB's or (ii) John's might be added. The
>family, on the basis of an agreement to this effect being entered into,
>offered to provide all possible assistance and cooperation for the whole
>series of volumes of correspondence. It remains (at least to me) a
>mystery why TPH, Wheaton (and John Algeo) could or would not enter into
>such an agreement - unless there was a concern (which may or may not have
>been acted upon) to "correct" the material. All the correspondence,
>including the attorney's letters (presumably paid for by the TS or the
>TPH) made no mention of the family's requirement or offered any
>explanation as to why it was unacceptable. Perhaps you can explain why an
>agreement not to edit, censor, change or "adjust" material would be
>unacceptable?
>
>You say: "I am somewhat puzzled by your mention of "rigid definitions of
>'ideological correctness'" which is "one of the reasons why John's
>collection of HPB's correspondence has been suppressed by Adyar (in its
>Wheaton manifestation." What other explanation can you offer? If there is
>no wish to censor, why not surrender the right to do so?

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