Poetry Shelley, Percy Bysshe: Complete Poetical Works. 28 Jun 2014 [Now with ePub 3]

[charleski]

For a while now I've been looking for a decent version of Shelley's works in epub format. There are several free copies around (including one on this forum), but they all share the same fault of failing to reproduce the alignment of verses found in printed editions. Shelley's poetry includes a lot of complicated changes in metre and rhyme, for which the visual presentation provides an essential guide. This is also a factor in his verse dramas, where a single line can be spoken by up to three different people and (in Charles I) the characters switch between poetry and prose structures within the same scene. Random House offers a decently-formatted version as part of its Modern Library imprint, but it is both expensive and, while following the format of Hutchinson's 1904 edition, fails to include his editorial notes.

So, I decided to do it myself, though it ended up being a larger project than I thought. This version is based on the 1914 revision of the Hutchinson Oxford Shelley, and the colophon includes links to the resources used. Shelley peppered his work with quotations (sometimes extensive) in various ancient and modern languages, so I included translations for all these passages, apart from those where a translation is provided in the text itself (e.g. 'Good-night'/'Buona Notte'). All the text and translations are in the public domain.

There are two versions. One for Adobe RMSDK-based readers, which should work well for screens of 6" or larger, and one for iBooks, which doesn't include the formatting tweaks because of problems in iBooks' css handling. As the book includes extensive marginalia it may not be as pretty on a really small (i.e. phone) screen, but should still be readable.

I spent a couple of weeks proofing and tweaking the text, but if anyone does spot a residual error, please let me know in the comments.

[Edit] Updated with a version that should work better for Kobo ereaders, or other readers that use an older version of the RMSDK.

[Update: 14-07-14: Added ePub3 version.]

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[doubleshuffle]

Thanks a ton for doing this. I've never been quite happy with my upload because of the verse alignment issue (and countless others, more and more the more I learn...)

[anacreon]

Thank you for this. I have a slight problem with line numbers: whether on the aura hd or the 6", as an epub or a kepub, whatever the margins, the line numbers above 3 digits are split (the 4th digit under the 3rd) - this in "the revolt of islam", which I suppose is the only one long enough, and with continuous numbering through the cantos to boot, to go above 3 digits.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by anacreon

Thank you for this. I have a slight problem with line numbers: whether on the aura hd or the 6", as an epub or a kepub, whatever the margins, the line numbers above 3 digits are split (the 4th digit under the 3rd) - this in "the revolt of islam", which I suppose is the only one long enough, and with continuous numbering through the cantos to boot, to go above 3 digits.

Hmm, I suspect kobo messes with the page margins (unfortunately a lot of reader software tries to 'improve' things by departing from the standard). I'd recommend trying the iBooks version, then, though it's not quite as optimised for small screens.

[doubleshuffle]

I've just had look at your edition(s) on my Aura HD, and I am impressed. This finally is a Shelley that looks the way it should!

And I don't have the issue with the line numbers that anacreon reports. Even the four-digit ones look perfect. (There is a minor line number quibble though. It doesn't bother me, but fixing it would be the final step to perfection: When a number is assigned to the first line of a stanza, it is displayed in the left margin not of that line, but of the space above the stanza.)

But really - this is brilliant. Thank you so much!

[charleski]

Thanks. If the line-numbers aren't aligned correctly, that needs to be fixed. Could you try out the attached file? I did some more tests and found the same thing you describe happening with some older versions of Adobe's reader. 10 should line up with 'Baffled with blast of', and 40 with 'But, like a steward'.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[doubleshuffle]

Yep, you've fixed the problem in the test file. Great!

[charleski]

Ok, I've updated the post to include a version that should work properly on Kobo ereaders. I also slightly widened the space given to the line numbers, which might fix the problem anacreon reported.

[doubleshuffle]

Thanks. Btw, since Kobo, like most other reader manufacturers, uses the standard Adobe rendering engine for epubs, I would expect the line numbering error to occur on other readers as well; so your Kobo version might be useful for those too.

[anacreon]

Well, I must have different settings from doubleshuffle or something: the new version has the same VERY minor problem on the aura HD (it doesn't disturb the reading pleasure of your version in any way), but it has new problems on the 6": the Canto number is left aligned, due to the kepub conversion. So I'll go back to the initial version.

I don't plan to read it on the 6" aura anyway: this is my public transport lightweight reader, and "spare tire" in case of problems on the HD, but the quality is much lower(definition, yellowish, blurring capacitive layer), and the extra .7" makes a real difference for poetry like this.

I've tried an epub on the 6": the centering problem disappeared but I much prefer the kepub rendering: heading and footer look better, and it is important in complete works especially that I am on page 13 of 27 of Canto XII rather than on page 178 of 1339 of whatever.

BTW, I noticed the number splitting is not systematic, there are occasionaly unsplit 4 digit line numbers, so I suppose it is not linked to the margin size, or your increased space works for occasional numbers, or I didn't see it because I was just sampling - who knows?

[charleski]

I did my testing on a device running the Nov 1 2013 release of version 9.3.3 of the RMSDK, and for that the 'standard' version is correct, whereas the 'kobo' version shifts the line number down one line. It also shows correctly on webkit-based renderers. I suspect that datalogics fixed something last year that hasn't made it through to the Kobo firmware yet, and you're right, this will probably be the same on a lot of other dedicated readers.

[doubleshuffle]

It definitely looks perfect now! And, try as I might, I cannot replicate anacreon's problem with the long verse numbers...

[charleski]

Since Mantano updated their reader to be able to handle ePub 3 last week, I spent the weekend preparing an ePub 3 version. My aim was to reduce the visual clutter produced by the notes, and I think ePub3 allows this to be done fairly well (it's not just for gratuitous multimedia). Footnotes are now handled using the <aside> mechanism and should appear in a popup window for those readers that have implemented a special presentation. Marginal notes are hidden and revealed using css3 animation so they remain in place but don't crowd the text.

In the course of revising the book I came across a few lingering errors that have been corrected. Most of these are very minor formatting changes (i.e. making sure italics are used consistently in the marginal notes). The only correction of any significance is at line 69 of Mont Blanc, which should read tracks rather than tracts (a tract of wolves is probably taking poetic licence too far). The ePub 3 version should therefore be considered the definitive edition. I've tested it in Readium in Chrome and the Mantano app as well as iBooks on a Mac and Azardi (though I can't recommend Azardi because of its font issues). Kobo also supports ePub3, I've not been able to test it on an actual Kobo device, but those with recent Kobo devices like the Aura HD should give it a try.

Regarding accessibility, sections are tagged with the relevant descriptors, and I've set aria-hidden="true" on the line-number and marginal note elements as suggested in the guidelines, which might prevent screen-readers from mixing them in with the main text. This has no effect on the TTS system in iBooks, but might work on more specialised systems.

[anacreon]

Dear Charleski,
The new notes calls are more pleasant (it is what I am used to on other kepubs), but I just noticed the pop-up note has a different police from the completer version. This is noticeable in the Greek quotation in a note in the introduction to Queen Mab. All my kepubs are sideloaded via Joel Goguen's plugin, and I use Georgia for Shelley.
I will choose the epub 3 version for my Aura HD.
Thank you.

[charleski]

Ah, if you're substituting a different font that would explain why you got an overflow in the line-numbers earlier - different fonts will take up different widths at the same em value. Very few standard fonts cover the full polytonic Greek alphabet that's needed to render Ancient Greek properly, which is one of the reasons I embedded a custom font.