Considering the lack of quality in many published ebooks, especially those older books that have been scanned, and then not-proofed very well, I was wondering if some publishers would grab the un-authorised scanned and proofed versions of their books, and base the legitimately published version on the pirated version.
I finally have an example of this.
The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley is a relatively famous book (and movie), and has finally become available as an ebook on Amazon. It's published by the Estate of the Late Leonard Wibberley. Also available are three other books of the series, the fifth book will be available in the future (more on this later).
Due to owning the physical book, and despairing of such a relatively old (1955) one becoming available as an ebook, I had sourced an alternatively available copy when I saw one. I had not gotten around to reading it yet (my TBR pile is quite large).
As I was reading the legitimate version on my phone, I noticed some extra punctuation (commas and full stops (periods)) that didn't belong, so I checked the legitimate version against an alternately sourced version.
Other than the conversion of some British-isms in the alternate version, and some clean up in the legitimate version, the two versions were almost identical.
Identical to having the same extra punctuation in the same place.
Identical in having the same scene breaks in the same place, and missing the scene breaks in the same place.
Identical to having the same paragraphs split into two.
The real kicker though, was the same mis-scan of "New York Daily News" as "New York Daily Neil's" in chapter 15.
There are also many instances of a British English spelling not being converted to the American spelling.
From all of this, I can only conclude that the Estate of the Late Leonard Wibberley grabbed the pirated version (which was based on a UK edition), did a minimal amount of proofing, and published it. As is their right, as presumably they own the copyright.
The really fun part is that the Estate made a major mistake in the editing. A major plot point of the book is the reason that the Duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the United States. The Duchy produces a wine, Pinot Grand Fenwick, which is their only export. The reason was:
Quote:
“Look at the label,” Gloriana said, placing the bottle before them. They looked and read, with growing horror, the words:
PINOT GRAND ENWICK
The Wine of Connoisseurs
There was a picture of the castle of Grand Fenwick and the label was in every way similar to that used on their Own precious wine. But at the bottom, in type so small as to be almost invisible, was the phrase:
Product of San Rafael, Calif., U.S.A.
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The Estate edited the "Pinot Grand Enwick" to be "Pinot Grand Fenwick" throughout the ebook, thereby confusing the excuse for the war. Oh yeah, that capitalisation of "Own" in the quote is present in both versions, but not the physical book.
As to the delay of the fifth book, Beware of the Mouse, this book is not available as an ebook anywhere. It is an incredibly rare book, with a value of over US$400 the last time I looked. So no one has scanned and OCRed it. EDIT: this book is now available for US$9 in paperback and US$4 for Kindle ebook at Amazon! Go the Estate!
P.S. I'd like to thank GA Russell for posting the Amazon link to the discounted book in the Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion) forum.