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AlexBell · 12-01-2014, 04:39 AM

This is a longish post, so please bear with me.

The background is that I'm working on Benigna Machiavelli by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for the MR library. The novella was published in her magazine Forerunner in 1914, and she died in 1935. The only source I've been able to find is pdf and text versions on Internet Archive. As well as many typos and inconsistencies in character names these sources omit chapter 3 completely. I have not been able to locate any other public domain online source for the text. I have found a commercial pdf version from Bandanna Books, but there is nothing on their site to enable me to contact them. There is an extensive foreword in their ebook which clearly states that they have modified the text to lessen the melodrama in the original. There are clear differences in style between the Bandanna Books version and the Internet Archive version, fewer typos, and fewer naming inconsistencies. And the Bandanna Books pdf states that it is under copyright.

I have no intention at all of using the original text in the foreword. But I'd like to take their chapter 3 to replace the missing chapter 3 in the Internet Archive version, and modify the style so that it matches the other eleven chapters.

Would this be acceptable for the MobileRead library? I intend to add an appendix 'Notes on the Text' to summarise the changes I have made.

A better solution of course would be to find a public domain version which is complete - and preferably has fewer typos. Can anyone point me to such a source? I'd be most grateful.

12-01-2014, 04:39 AM	#1
AlexBell Wizard Posts: 3,413 Karma: 13369310 Join Date: May 2008 Location: Launceston, Tasmania Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet	A complicated copyright question This is a longish post, so please bear with me. The background is that I'm working on Benigna Machiavelli by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for the MR library. The novella was published in her magazine Forerunner in 1914, and she died in 1935. The only source I've been able to find is pdf and text versions on Internet Archive. As well as many typos and inconsistencies in character names these sources omit chapter 3 completely. I have not been able to locate any other public domain online source for the text. I have found a commercial pdf version from Bandanna Books, but there is nothing on their site to enable me to contact them. There is an extensive foreword in their ebook which clearly states that they have modified the text to lessen the melodrama in the original. There are clear differences in style between the Bandanna Books version and the Internet Archive version, fewer typos, and fewer naming inconsistencies. And the Bandanna Books pdf states that it is under copyright. I have no intention at all of using the original text in the foreword. But I'd like to take their chapter 3 to replace the missing chapter 3 in the Internet Archive version, and modify the style so that it matches the other eleven chapters. Would this be acceptable for the MobileRead library? I intend to add an appendix 'Notes on the Text' to summarise the changes I have made. A better solution of course would be to find a public domain version which is complete - and preferably has fewer typos. Can anyone point me to such a source? I'd be most grateful.