2009/12/21 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Draft, then.
"What do Howard Carter, discoverer of the tomb of King Tut, author Zane Grey of the cowboy classic "Riders of the Purple Sage", and sexologist Havelock Ellis have in common? The answer is that they all died in 1939, meaning that on New Year's Day all their works are free from copyright.
I would be careful with using Grey as an example - he's definitely American, and their status is "complicated". I'm not sure we can say the copyright status of a randomly chosen Grey work will change in a couple of weeks...
If we're going to use a non-British author, I'd go with Yeats.