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No, it's absolutely not the same editing dead author's text as a living one:
1) It's already out
2) They can't agree about changes
3) Readers who read it or have it on paper have reasonable expectations.
Gutenberg and Fadedpage teams both have it right. You do not change author's intent or make it better. Only totally obvious errors of transmission as I explained in last post.
Of course as it's public domain, you can do what you like. Expect howling readers with pitchforks and torches if you "improve" or "correct" the author.
Erring on the side of NOT changing is best.
Formatting / layout has more flexibility, especially for ebooks, which reflow.
One reason that Publishers change fonts, layout and commission new illustrations is that the overall book has then a fresh copyright, though the text itself is in the public domain. Facsimiles of original editions are thus rarely done by publishers.
OCR errors and typesetting errors are pretty clear to an experienced proof reader.
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