Soon, I'm going to be illustrating a graphic novel of a short story written in 1892 and I was wondering what the legal ramifications of getting it published would be. I've only found copyright laws dealing with short stories after the turn of the century but not before. I want to make sure that I'm not violating some obscure copyright law by doing this. The original author would be getting credit along with a foreword at the beginning of the story. I would also make it very clear that I in no way hold ownership over the original text.

Is there anything else I need to do before embarking on this? I should also mention that the story is "The Yellow Wallpaper".

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Originally Posted by IntroducingEmy

Soon, I'm going to be illustrating a graphic novel of a short story written in 1892 and I was wondering what the legal ramifications of getting it published would be. I've only found copyright laws dealing with short stories after the turn of the century but not before. I want to make sure that I'm not violating some obscure copyright law by doing this. The original author would be getting credit along with a foreword at the beginning of the story. I would also make it very clear that I in no way hold ownership over the original text.

Is there anything else I need to do before embarking on this? I should also mention that the story is "The Yellow Wallpaper".

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I would not venture into this without the advice of an Attorney -

I know that's not the specific advice you wanted but when it's someone else's work, as I said, I'd get a written legal opinion.

You need to first determine whether the copyright on the story has been renewed by the author's family. Generally works that old are in the public domain, but maybe not.