Tales From Shakespeare: Hamlet - December 1931 - Matches Anniversary Manual

This is the second Gregg Shorthand version of Hamlet written in Gregg Shorthand. This version was published in December 1931 to match the 1929 Anniversary Gregg Manual.  The shorthand plates are by Winifred Kenna Richmond. 

After careful research, I have determine that this 1931 book entered the public domain as soon as it was first published.  There is no copyright notice in the book.  Any book first published in the US before January 1, 1978, without a proper copyright notice immediately went into the public domain at the time of publication.  There are also no copyright notices in any of the other individual Gregg Shorthand novel versions of existing works, such as Alice in Wonderland, Rip Van Winkle, the Great Stone Face, etc.  All copyrights belonged to the original material.  Back then, the US Copyright Office did not allow Gregg to copyright shorthand novels based on existing literary works.

I learned something interesting about the publisher's codes on the verso pages of Gregg Shorthand books.  The one in this book is L75-NP-5.  Different pressings of these novels have different publisher's codes, even though the shorthand plates are identical.  There are different codes for different press runs, which typically do not include new shorthand plates.

--The First letter (e.g. L) indicates the month of this publication.  A=January, B=Feb, etc.  This press run for Hamlet was from December.

--The number following the first letter (e.g. 75) is a code that indicates a specific publication year and version of the Gregg Shorthand Manual that is connected to the book.  These numbers were not assigned in ascending or descending order.  And often they are incorrect.  (That is why the "83" in D83 caused Warren Weaver (Jabberwocky Winter 1975) to believe that the first 1919 hardcover edition of Alice in Wonderland in Gregg Shorthand came out in 1915.)

--The letters following the first hyphen (e.g. NP) are supposed to indicate the publisher.

--The number following the second hyphen (e.g. 5) is supposed to indicate the number of copies printed with this press run.  Weaver (Jabberwocky Winter 1975) assumed that 5 meant 5000.

It you look at the right side of the illustration on the Page 1 shorthand plate, you will see "Oct 1931."  The "L" in the publisher's code indicates December.  So this book likely came out in December 1931.

The first version of Hamlet in Gregg Shorthand was published around 1915 to match the 1902 Gregg Shorthand Manual.

The English text version of this book is found in the chapter "Hamlet: Prince of Denmark" from "Tales of Shakespeare" by Charles and Mary Lamb.

Here is a link to a public domain version of the English text: