Dangerously e-books: How do I know if my ebooks have been altered?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Exactly. This is what concerns me. And too many people have just been pooh-poohing this legitimate concern as paranoia.

It was always possible. Unless you have good reason to trust that an authority you trust is verifying each and every upload.

The fact that you trusted the MR library before AlexBell's admission means nothing other than that you should've never been foolish enough to trust it in the first place, if you were looking for an authoritative source.

Bottom line is, no source is authoritative other than the original manuscript, and you will have to make a choice at some point where you draw the line at caring.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It was always possible. Unless you have good reason to trust that an authority you trust is verifying each and every upload.

The fact that you trusted the MR library before AlexBell's admission means nothing other than that you should've never been foolish enough to trust it in the first place, if you were looking for an authoritative source.

Bottom line is, no source is authoritative other than the original manuscript, and you will have to make a choice at some point where you draw the line at caring.

Which is why digital files are suspect, always, and it's not the best idea to give up on paper.

And yes, paper books can be altered, but not as secretly or easily.

I didn't trust the MR library well before that admission, because of other earlier indications of people tinkering with language.

[eschwartz]

It is only difficult to alter a paper book (or a digital book ) if you aren't the publisher.

And according to the references on this thread, it seems publishers are quite happy to change the text. So manuscripts are still the only authoritative source, since you can test the handwriting.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It is only difficult to alter a paper book (or a digital book ) if you aren't the publisher.

Not so true with digital books; I do it all the time. In fact, I've got two corrections noted to make on the ebook I'm currently reading - a typo correction and a miswritten phrase. But then, I'm not recirculating it; I've only passed one corrected book along to someone, and he's an editor for that publisher.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And according to the references on this thread, it seems publishers are quite happy to change the text. So manuscripts are still the only authoritative source, since you can test the handwriting.

So it seems there are no authoritative sources for most books, given how many of them have been created digitally.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

Not so true with digital books; I do it all the time. In fact, I've got two corrections noted to make on the ebook I'm currently reading - a typo correction and a miswritten phrase. But then, I'm not recirculating it; I've only passed one corrected book along to someone, and he's an editor for that publisher.

Yes, the recirculation would tend to be the problem.

So it seems there are no authoritative sources for most books, given how many of them have been created digitally.

Pretty much.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Seriously? If you don't like the work of a group of volunteers who are providing mostly well edited and formatted public domain books for free, I'd suggest you look elsewhere. Nobody is forcing either you or EbookNovice to accept what's provided. If you think you can do better, I'm sure that the maintainers of this site would be glad to accept your output. I understand that gutenberg.org will provide you with books, though I understand the editing quality is less than perfect.

Yes, I have totally lost the trust in the books here so I do not use them anymore. Making changes without telling the readers that invest time when reading the book is not something I consider moral or polite to do.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It is only difficult to alter a paper book (or a digital book ) if you aren't the publisher.

And according to the references on this thread, it seems publishers are quite happy to change the text. So manuscripts are still the only authoritative source, since you can test the handwriting.

Publishers do not change the text in paper books without making a new edition.

The books here at MobileRead is not published as new editions.

[pynch]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, I have totally lost the trust in the books here so I do not use them anymore. Making changes without telling the readers that invest time when reading the book is not something I consider moral or polite to do.

Originally Posted by tompe

Publishers do not change the text in paper books without making a new edition.

The books here at MobileRead is not published as new editions.

Please keep in mind that AlexBell’s epubs are an exception here on MR. Most of the uploaders don’t change the texts or precisely describe what they change. In my collections I never change anything (I even keep typos!).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pynch

Please keep in mind that AlexBell’s epubs are an exception here on MR. Most of the uploaders don’t change the texts or precisely describe what they change. In my collections I never change anything (I even keep typos!).

In the books that I care about (eg Dickens, Austen), I always say what edition I've proofed the book against.

Pynch - do you mean that you don't proof-read your books, or that you make your editions precisely match what you proof against, errors and all?

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, I have totally lost the trust in the books here so I do not use them anymore. Making changes without telling the readers that invest time when reading the book is not something I consider moral or polite to do.

Aw, come off it, will you? AlexBell admitted to that one change in one upload. He should never have made that change, at least not unacknowledged. But that has been discussed ad nauseam earlier in this thread, with several uploaders coming forward and declaring that they would never alter text without acknowledging it. Many uploaders even provide links in their books to the sources they used so downloaders can verify the text at their leisure. Just read this thread from the beginning, will you, before going on and on about how you can't trust the uploads here anymore. Or provide trustworthy uploads yourself, how about that?

ETA: Oh, pynch and Harry were quicker...

[pynch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Pynch - do you mean that you don't proof-read your books, or that you make your editions precisely match what you proof against, errors and all?

Depends. As my Complete Works collections often have thousands of pages, I do not proof-read the single books when they are sourced from more or less reliable sites (Gutenberg, Adelaide University, for example). For those I only check and correct the paragraph and character formatting.

For ocr’d scans it’s different, of course. I usually proof-read them and correct in my text only what’s different from the scans (all of the Virginia Woolf diaries and letters), but sometimes I only do double spell-checks (De Quincey, for example). If I live to be 250 years, I’m gonna revise them all, but for the time being, I prefer to make all of the texts of an author available instead of only some of them perfect. The certified HarryT-approach© with word-by-word and line-by-line comparisons I have only used for the pre-published Finnegans Wake chapters so far.

ETA:
So in my original answer it should have read “In my collections I only fix mistakes if I spot them and they are different from the source.”

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pynch

Depends. As my Complete Works collections often have thousands of pages, I do not proof-read the single books when they are sourced from more or less reliable sites (Gutenberg, Adelaide University, for example). For those I only check and correct the paragraph and character formatting.

For ocr’d scans it’s different, of course. I usually proof-read them and correct in my text only what’s different from the scans (all of the Virginia Woolf diaries and letters), but sometimes I only do double spell-checks (De Quincey, for example). If I live to be 250 years, I’m gonna revise them all, but for the time being, I prefer to make all of the texts of an author available instead of only some of them perfect. The certified HarryT-approach© with word-by-word and line-by-line comparisons I have only used for the pre-published Finnegans Wake chapters so far.

Thanks. Both approaches certainly have merit, but I'm afraid I can't agree with the view that PG is a reliable source - I've found literally thousands of errors in some PG books. The worse example was probably the PG version of Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop", which had two instances of a complete double page of text having been omitted, several missing paragraphs, and numerous lesser infidelities. That's why I always attempt to proof against a printed (or scanned) edition, because although one can correct errors that are present using a spell-checker, there's no way to correct text that's not there at all.

Modern PG editions are much better. The basic problem is that most of the classics are among the oldest PG books, and hence the least reliable. PG don't appear to have any sort of programme for re-doing old books.

[pynch]

Unfortunately, you’re right. I already know that most of the texts of my Edgar Allan Poe edition are from those early PG days and need a major revision. Haven’t found the time, yet.

———

As things tend to get mixed up in this thread (as they do in all other threads in all the forums in all the internets of the universe, at least), let me please add that, while certainly affecting the reliability of the texts, these differences are of course not caused by malevolent intentions.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pynch

Unfortunately, you’re right. I already know that most of the texts of my Edgar Allan Poe edition are from those early PG days and need a major revision. Haven’t found the time, yet.

That's exactly my approach - get them out there, and then revise when time allows. That's why I'm posting very few new ebooks these days - I'm revising all the old ones.

[Cady Heron]

It's very unlikely that this would happen if you're getting your books from reputable sources.

If you're buying your books from Amazon or a similar store, check the editor and other bibliographical data. Sometimes less-than-reputable editors just make a quick version to sell based on public domain texts with little or no regard for the quality.

If you're downloading ebooks for free make sure the source is reputable as well. Sites like gutenberg.org tend to be good for this purpose.

An important note: if you have a preference for a specific editor or translator, make sure it's the same on the ebook you're downloading. On stores you'll usually find this under bibliographic data. Sometimes translations can be very different between them, so if you like a specific translation you should make sure that's the one you're getting.

Regarding the fact that ebooks may not be accurate since they're made by people based on paper books, that is a risk that exists for any and all books. Even paper books. This is especially true of older books. Unless you're getting a facsimile edition, if you buy a recent edition of an older book, it's very likely that someone put together that edition to adjust to new printing methods based on older books. In some cases you'll even have different versions of print books depending on which sources they're based on (one such example is Shakespeare, as depending on the quarto or folio that the edition is based on, the text itself can be very different). If you're particularly interested in getting a more complete picture, some editors (mainly academic-oriented ones) often have different editions of works that will be based on one source but note where other sources differ and include the variation for reference purposes. For the average reader, though, it's usually just enough to research what the "standard" or more accepted version for a given work is.