The Right to Privacy Origins and Influence of a Nineteenth-Century Idea

Using original and archival material, The Right to Privacy traces the origins and influence of the right to privacy as a social, cultural and legal idea. Richardson argues that this right had emerged as an important legal concept across a number of jurisdictions by the end of the nineteenth century, providing a basis for its recognition as a universal human right in later centuries. This book is a unique contribution to the history of the modern right to privacy. It covers the transition from Georgian to Victorian England, developments in Second Empire France, insights in the lead up to the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) of 1896, and the experience of a rapidly modernising America around the turn of the twentieth century. It will appeal to an audience of academic and postgraduate researchers, as well as to the judiciary and legal practice.

Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Authorship, secrecy, privacy; 2. Creative self-fashioning; 3. Intimate images; 4. Resisting spectacle; 5. Make it new!; Appendix: documentation; Index.

With the inclusion of original and archival material, this book is a unique contribution to the history of the modern right to privacy. This book will appeal to an audience of academic and postgraduate researchers, as well as to the judiciary and legal practice.

Megan Richardson is a Professor of Law at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Her fields of research and publication include privacy and personality rights, law reform and legal theory. She is Joint Director of the Melbourne Law School's Centre for Media and Communications Law (CMCL) and Director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA).