Houghton Mifflin Company Statement On The Wind Done Gone.Business Editors BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 2001 Wendy Strothman, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Houghton Mifflin Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. The company's headquarters is located in Boston's Back Bay. It publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers Company's Trade & Reference Division released the following statement in response to press reports: We are pleased that Judge Charles Pannell (Thomas) Charles Pannell, Baron Pannell (10 September 1902 - 23 March 1980) was a British Labour politician. He was elected Member of Parliament for Leeds West at a 1949 by-election, and served until his retirement at the February 1974 general election. has set a hearing date of April 18, 2001 in the lawsuit filed by the Mitchell Trusts to prevent publication of Alice Randall's parody, The Wind Done Gone. As publishers, we strongly support the right of authors to control their creative work and their characters. We would not permit retellings, sequels, nor any other infringement of the copyrights of the valuable literary works we publish. Since 1832 Houghton Mifflin Company has published some of America's most prominent and lasting writers: we understand the value of copyright. We also believe in the First Amendment and the right to free expression. We believe in the right to comment and criticize. We believe in an artist's right to parody other work. For decades we have let stand Bored of the Rings Bored of the Rings (BOTR) is the shared title of various independent parodies of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR), a novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. Harvard Lampoon novel Bored of the Rings is a short novel by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney. , a Harvard Lampoon Harvard Lampoon mocking, satirical periodical. [Am. Pop. Culture: Misc.] See : Zaniness parody of one of our most valuable literary properties, J.R.R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings. We stand by our decision to publish Alice Randall's novel The Wind Done Gone. Many prominent writers and scholars, including Ismael Reed, Claude Brown Claude Brown (February 23, 1937 - February 2, 2002) is the author of Manchild in the Promised Land, published to critical acclaim in 1965, which tells the story of his coming of age during the 1940s and 1950s in Harlem. , Rita Mae Brown Rita Mae Brown (b. November 28, 1944) is a prolific American writer, most known for her mysteries and other novels (Rubyfruit Jungle). She is also an Emmy-nominated screenwriter. , Tony Early, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have read and endorsed the book. We have always thought that Randall's novel would appeal primarily to an audience of African Americans and other readers who are troubled by the picture of the Antebellum South and Reconstruction portrayed in Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone with the Wind--a picture that has come to have mythic status in our culture. No one who reads Alice Randall's 206-page parody could possibly confuse it with Mitchell's epic or any sequel, or believe it to be a "retelling re·tell·ing n. A new account or an adaptation of a story: a retelling of a Roman myth. " of her complex and detailed narrative. Randall's novel is written in the form of an intimate diary of a character that does not appear in Mitchell's book. Randall's references to elements of Gone with the Wind are intended precisely for criticism or ridicule. By its very nature, a parody must evoke the work that is its target. The Wind Done Gone is a transformative original work that compels readers to rethink how they have viewed an American classic. |
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