Public Domain Day is a celebration of the creative works that come out of copyright and enter the public domain each year on 1 January.

Once in the public domain, most of these works are available for you to use freely without permission or restriction.

Items in the National Library’s collection that enter the public domain this year include unpublished works by authors who died in 1954, orphan works (i.e. those without a known author) created in 1954, and government publications created in 1974.

Highlights

Prominent Australians who died in 1954 include renowned Australian writer Miles Franklin and war correspondent Reginald William Winchester ‘Chester’ Wilmot. 

Miles Franklin’s unpublished works 

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 1879 – 19 September 1954) is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published in 1901. A prolific writer throughout her life, handwritten and typewritten drafts of some of her other novels held in the National Library’s collection have now entered the public domain.  

Franklin’s published works have been out of copyright since 1 January 2005. 

The Library holds several collections of Miles Franklin’s personal papers and correspondence. Her papers from 1877-1933 and 1887-c.1931 include:

• A hand-written draft in sequential notebooks of the novel Old Blastus of Bandicoot (1931) 
• A typewritten draft of a three-act play version of Old Blastus of Bandicoot 
• Typewritten drafts of the novel Prelude to waking: A Novel in the first person parentheses (1950) 
• A typewritten and bound edition of Ten Creeks Run: A Tale of the Horse and Cattle Stations of The Upper Murrumbidgee (1930) (the second novel in a trilogy)

A number of these drafts were written using Franklin’s pseudonym, Brent of Bin Bin.  

Chester Wilmot's unpublished works

Reginald William Winchester ‘Chester’ Wilmot (21 June 1911 – 10 January 1954) reported from the Middle East, Japan, and Papua during the Second World War. He later worked as a broadcaster and was part of the commentary team for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. He died in a plane crash enroute back to the UK. He was the author of two books – Tobruk 1941, Capture – Siege – Relief (1945) and The Struggle for Europe (1952) and has been the subject of books exploring his life as war correspondent and broadcaster.  

Previously unpublished materials from his papers held by the Library are now in the public domain.  

Papers of other prominent Australians 

Other Australians with unpublished works entering the public domain include: 

Sir Herbert Gepp 

A mining metallurgist, public servant, and industrialist who for a time managed the Australian Explosives and Chemical Co. at Deer Park, Victoria. A letter and his recollections of working at Deer Park are in the National Library’s collection.  

David John Bevan  

A solicitor trained in Melbourne and later a judge in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. Bevan served as a member of the Berwick Shire Council in Victoria from 1924 to 1932. He retired to his native Victoria and settled in Upper Beaconsfield. His unpublished papers in our collection include a privately produced journal titled The Buffalo buster (1907-1908).   

John Cumpston 

The Commonwealth Director-General of Health and Quarantine from 1913-1945. His unpublished works in our collection feature typescript volumes entitled Health and disease in Australia. The collection also includes a bound volume of his work, The history of small-pox in Australia 1788-1908, which was already in the public domain. 

John Howard Litten 

A methodist minister, originally in Middelsex, England, and later in Melbourne, Victoria. Our collection includes volumes of music composed by Litten, correspondence and diaries, and papers relating to his involvement with the emigration of British orphans to Australia.  

Determining copyright

It is important to note that materials entering the public domain from an individuals’ collection, such as with Miles Franklin this year, are usually only the works where copyright sits with the person themselves, such as their previously unpublished letters, drafts, or diaries. These collections contain a vast array of other material, including published materials, government papers and correspondence and other collected materials that have other copyright holders.  

More information about copyright in Library collections is available – this includes advice on what to do if additional permissions are required before using items from the National Library collections.