Copyright Aid

I'm wondering if I can legitimately publish extracts from a facsimile of a book, which was printed in 1987. There is no claim to copyright on any of the pages. The original book was published in 1902 and reprinted in 1904. Internet searching says the author died in 1931.

The printer of the facsimile seems to be still in existence, assuming it's the same printer which is now at a different address.

The extracts would be pretty short - a few lines from a few chapters.

Your advice would be welcome. Thank you.

Hi Chris,
I think that both the original work and the facsimile edition are almost certainly in the public domain and therefore you can freely quote from it.
The fact that the author died in 1931 and the work was published before his death means that the original copyright would have ended in 1982 - 50 years after his death. The facsimile version would therefore also have been in the public domain, which is possibly why there is no copyright notice.
And in any case the new quotation exception would probably have covered what you want to do.
So on that basis you can freely use the work as you wish.

Thank you for your reply. That's very helpful, and also the link.