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Originally Posted by HarryT
You do. As I've said previously, in the UK and most other countries (but perhaps not the US), you automatically hold a "typographical copyright" on the formatting of the book which lasts for 25 years. Although the text itself is in the public domain, people can't just make direct copies of your version of it. They can reformat it and THEN do what they wish with it, however.
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I suppose that it has to be non-trivial HTML code in the sense that if you re-format it in the obvious way and end up with nearly the same HTML code it should be OK to distribute.
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publishers who are "serious" about classics - eg "Oxford World Classics" or "Penguin Classics" - add scholarly introductions, footnotes, etc, to them. That's why they are sold as full-priced paperbacks and why people buy them. Publishers who reprint just the public domain text generally sell their books very, very cheaply.
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The paper editions with added material are usually still a bit cheaper than ordinary paper backs.