Publishing WW2 Diary

[edelweiss123]

Thanks! Heres a pic that makes it look a bit less daunting...

[StefanM]

As has been said, if i put them on here for you all to see i am merely sharing an item of my collection. What annoys me, is the owner of these diaries sold them on. Im assuming this is a relative of the late owner. So they obviously weren't interested. However, if it were to be published, they would soon become interested in their relatives history. Cases like this i imagine stop a lot of people sharing the history the have of soldiers and their diaries etc...Rant over

You should be aware that sharing your collection here might very well and probably would constitute publishing them but as I said in my earlier post there is little risk of any consequences

For the militaria collector most governmental documents, reports, logbooks, etc written whilst in service of the state by serving soldiers, airmen etc are often considered in the public domain or in the case of the UK under Crown copyright.

[GIZMO8Z]

lol.... Yeah, still daunting... !

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Don't make the mistake of showing too much of the diaries. Get in touch with a few publishers and tell them what you have. There may be one who will be interested in publishing them. But be warned. It takes a lot of hard work to turn diaries into a book!

[edelweiss123]

Don't make the mistake of showing too much of the diaries. Get in touch with a few publishers and tell them what you have. There may be one who will be interested in publishing them. But be warned. It takes a lot of hard work to turn diaries into a book!

Thanks for the comment. At the moment im not thinking about publishing it. Just sharing a bit of it with forum members
James will be starting his masters in military history in a few months so all the time spent on it would also contribute towards that. Primary sources such as this are invaluable in his course. Its a win win

[GIZMO8Z]

Thanks for the comment. At the moment im not thinking about publishing it. Just sharing a bit of it with forum members
James will be starting his masters in military history in a few months so all the time spent on it would also contribute towards that. Primary sources such as this are invaluable in his course. Its a win win

My thoughts exactly when I transcribed my diary.

[edelweiss123]

My thoughts exactly when I transcribed my diary.

It also means we can look at the content without putting further strain on the spines of the diaries and handling the papers too much.

[drmessimer]

Edelweiss123: I have been writing for publication for nearly 30 years, and several of my books relied heavily on diaries, letters, previously published memoirs, and government documents. I can't speak on copyright law in the UK, but in the US the material you have would be copyright free, unless it was stolen from the rightful owner or his survivors, which is highly unlikely. If you have legal title to the material, it's yours.
Again, referring to US copyright law, you have the right to use even copyrighted material in limited amount for the purpose of illustrating a point, as an education example, or for your personal use in research, for which you can make complete copies.
Generally, if the material you have is more than fifty years old, it's copyright free. The exception would be material or a publication for which the copyright has been regularly renewed, which is certainly not the case with what you have. For example, The Naval Institute Press publishes an ongoing series titled, Classics in Naval Literature in which they publish unedited, complete texts of old books such as Paul König, The Voyage of the Deutschland, New York: Hearst Publishing, 1916. Another publisher, Leonaur recently published their own title, U-Boat War, 1914-1918 that is a complete reprint of two books published after WWI, one of which is titled, Diary of a U-Boat Commander, and purports to be an assembly of the man's letters to his wife during the war. Several other publishers are doing the same thing--publishing books that are out of copyright.
As I said, I can't speak on copyright law in the UK, but I seriously doubt that you would encounter any problems if you wish to do something with the material you have. The options for how to handle the material are many. Dwight