Maureen Duffy 1933 – 2026

MAUREEN DUFFY was indomitable in defence of authors' rights. Often mild-mannered in meetings in London, she was in Geneva a force to behold. Even the more hardened diplomats at the World Intellectual Property Organization there listened, though some industry lobbyists shuffled their papers nervously.

Maureen Duffy

Image © ALCS

Maureen spoke with clarity about the importance – the indispensability – of creative work expressing the human spirit. Society depends upon it; to do it we authors and performers must be able to dedicate ourselves to it; we must therefore be able to earn a living by it. Otherwise...

Maureen did dedicate herself to her poetry, and a huge range of other creative work, including her decidedly raw take on the fairy tale in The Erotic World of Faery. (I once mentioned Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale when we were discussing “narrative” and how it is abused by lobbyists. “But,” she retorted, “have you read mine? It's much better.”)

With Brigid Brophy Maureen invented Public Lending Right to compensate authors for the loss of royalties on sales that did not happen because people instead borrowed our works from public libraries. In a bravado demonstration of legal ju-jitsu, she arranged that the law passed in 1979 grant the right to payment to authors because we are the author, regardless of any contract that a publisher may have foisted on us. PLR has since paid more than £750 million.

Maureen was also one of the founders of the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society and president of honour of the British Copyright Council, which remembered her in silence at its Annual General Meeting on 4 June/.

The Freelance reports with great sadness that she died on 27 May 2026. Poet, novelist, playwright, biographer of the then-forgotten playwright the tumultuous Aphra Behn, anti-war campaigner, feminist, gay icon, animal rights campaigner, working-class Londoner sometimes in exile... It is a privilege to have known her.

© Mike Holderness

A tribute to Maureen Duffy alcs.co.uk

Obituary: Maureen Duffy writersguild.org.uk