Quote:
Originally Posted by Anais9000
Sony is publishing them. That's why they're called Sony Classics. Or CONNECT eBooks CLASSICS.
I'm not talking about an occasional typo. I'm talking about the fact that there are hundreds of typos in most Gutenberg texts, sometimes thousands.
Even one typo can spoil a book. When Hester Prynne says, in the Gutenberg version: "So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in my hands." ... she sounds like someone planning to blackmail a former lover. The most humble character in fiction becomes a suspect, because someone typed "my hands" instead of "thy hands" -- and nobody bothered to check.
OK, so that's an extreme example, but it spoils a book for me altogether when there are say, 500+ errors in it, averaging about one per page -- like the Dracula posted here recently by JSWolf. What makes it really sickening is that now they're appearing on Google Books with names like "The Authoritative Text" (just check the spelling of "Ordance [sic] Survey Maps" on page 2 of any edition to see if it's the Gutenberg version). And they're even appearing in bookstores! -- plain label-type publishers are taking these texts and selling them between covers for big money in Barnes & Noble.
In the olden days maybe there was an excuse for this -- not for publishers, but maybe for the amateurs like those in this forum. Who wants to go out and buy a copy of every book you post, and check it? But now practically eveything's available on Google books or Microsoft's http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books
So all it would cost MobileRead members would be a little time to check the text. Instead, they format and upload crap copies. Like counterfeit money driving out good money, crap books are driving out the real thing. |
Project Gutenberg is supposed to have proofreaders to do the proofing. I'm planning on becoming a proofreader. I did join the site. Just have to figure out how to do it. I want to work on the ORCed copy from the graphic pages so I can correct the errors in the OCRing process. So how do so many errors slip past the proofreaders?