[jgray]

After more experimentation (I can't leave well enough alone), I found a way to make a real drop cap without using span, or any additional HTML markup. Nothing but CSS.

Further tweaks and input welcome. As for me, it's late and I'm off to bed.

p {
	line-height: 120%;			/* This keeps the line heights consistent.
	                    		Try without this to see what goes wrong. */

	text-indent: 1.2em;     	/* Adjust to suit. */
	margin-left: .4em;          /* Add some margin so we can move the dropcap left. */
	margin-right: .4em;
}

h1#title {
	text-align: center;
}

h2#author {
	text-align: center;
}

h2.chapter + p {
	text-indent: 0;             /* No indent wanted on first paragraph of a chapter. */
}

/* This looks really good in FF 3.6, but the drop cap is too high in IE 8. */
h2.chapter + p:first-letter {   /* This is the pseudo-dropcap. The first letter
								of the first paragraph after a chapter heading. */

	float: left;                /* This makes the drop cap work. */
	margin: -.1em;              /* Move the drop cap left a bit for looks. */
	letter-spacing: .1em;       /* Adjust spacing to rest of first word. */
	color: red;                 /* Change to suit. */
	font-size: +3.8em;          /* This looks good to me. Change if you want. */
}