Book Review - Stolen Words by Thomas Mallon

 Stolen Words by Thomas Mallon

San Diego: A Harvest Book, 2001 (originally published 1989)      ISBN 0156011360

This book was an interesting read, but doesn't quite live up to the breathless blurb on the cover ("The classic book on plagiarism). Thomas Mallon, through five case studies looks at what plagiarism is, and what it isn't, and why it takes place.

After a brief history lesson on the beginnings of copyright, Mallon looks at the career of Laurence Sterne and his theft of Robert Burton. He then moves on to the case of Charles Reade, and his copying of Mlle. de Malepeire,  academic malfeasance in Texas, the sad case of Jacob Epstein's copying of Martin Amis, before tracking his way through the Falcon Crest saga.

He uses these examples to not only delve into the nature of plagiarism, but also to try to investigate why plagiarists do what they do. He is fascinated by the fact that many plagiarists are very active in hunting out others that have engaged in the same activity. Charles Reade in particular was vociferous in his denigration of those who stole from their French compatriots, and yet he blatantly copied Mlle. de Malepeire by Mme. Reybaud...when he didn't need to after his own successful career. It seems that many plagiarists have what Mallon calls "a death wish"....they actually want to get caught. The case of Jacob Epstein, son of literary lions Barbara and Jason, is a case in point. Stealing large chunks of Martin Amis was bound to be found out eventually, but the embarrassment of actually being found out by Martin himself made the scandal all the more juicy for the newspapers.

In academia, Mallon shows us that a fear of litigation can lead to plagiarists thriving, and that the excuse of "I mixed up my notebooks" has been alive and well for hundreds of years. However, sometimes something that is similar is not plagiarism. After all, there are only so many stories, and so many ways you can describe an individual event. The key, as Mallon shows us, is in the words - plots can't be copyrighted, but words can, and plagiarism is really stealing words rather than ideas.

Overall, this book was easy to read and interesting, but in my opinion there was a bit too much blow-by-blow description and not enough discussion of the motivation behind the examples he writes about. I think more philosophical musing might have made this work a bit better...but you may differ.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell