eBooks we're working on

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Greek letters should be no problem if you use an appropriate encoding, such as utf8, then it's a matter of the fonts in the reader having the Greek glyphs (which most current fonts should have). As for a starting format for ebooks, I'd use HTML, and then use XHTML+CSS (ePUB) as a storage and conversion source format.

It wasn't that I was worried it can't be done, just that I'm looking for the safest way. If I'm making this for public consumption, who knows what fonts will get used on the other end... and will the encoding be preserved through various conversions? Would doing it in Html and using α and β codes, be better... or putting in LaTeX and using \alpha and \beta, etc.? That's what I'm trying to decide currently.

Nice byline, by the way.

[HarryT]

Spent the last month thoroughly proofing my version of "Pride and Prejudice" the book against the first edition text. Dozens of genuine errors corrected, and literally thousands of changes (changes to pretty much every sentence in the book) made in punctuation to match the first edition's punctuation, which is very different to modern usage.

Note that this version of the book now uses Austen's original spellings, which may appear odd to modern readers: her random use of "ei" in words which we now spell "ie", such as "neices" instead of "nieces", "shew" instead of "show", "chuse" (sometimes, but not always) instead of "choose", "staid" instead of "stayed", and many more. The spelling is also internally inconsistent: "Philips" sometimes appears as "Phillips", for example, "de Bourgh" is randomly "De Bourgh". All this matches the original text.

Uploaded new versions for both Sony and MobiPocket.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Spent the last month thoroughly proofing my version of "Pride and Prejudice" the book against the first edition text. Dozens of genuine errors corrected, and literally thousands of changes (changes to pretty much every sentence in the book) made in punctuation to match the first edition's punctuation, which is very different to modern usage.

Note that this version of the book now uses Austen's original spellings, which may appear odd to modern readers: her random use of "ei" in words which we now spell "ie", such as "neices" instead of "nieces", "shew" instead of "show", "chuse" (sometimes, but not always) instead of "choose", "staid" instead of "stayed", and many more. The spelling is also internally inconsistent: "Philips" sometimes appears as "Phillips", for example, "de Bourgh" is randomly "De Bourgh". All this matches the original text.

Uploaded new versions for both Sony and MobiPocket.

Interesting. Putting errors back in the text to match a paper edition is not my idea of what I prefer to read. To each his own I suppose. There certainly wasn't much proofreading back then. I am reminded of all the errors in the early editions of the KJV of the Bible which often created quite a stir at the time. Every print run had different errors.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Interesting. Putting errors back in the text to match a paper edition is not my idea of what I prefer to read.

I like it, because it reflects the English usage of the period. Would you re-write Shakespeare in "modern" English? Austen's English is sufficiently old that personally I think that it should be read in its original spellings, which, indeed, are what most "reputable" printed editions (Oxford World Classics, Penguin Classics, etc) use. Someone has gone through the PG text (which I used previously) and "rationalised" the spelling, which I don't like. One is not then reading what Austen wrote.

However, as you very rightly say, each to his own .

What do other people think?

[Jellby]

It is indeed a tricky subject. One should draw a line between customs of the author/editor/period and simple mistakes, errors or careless printing, but this line is not always easy.

I am currently (proof)reading Don Quixote, using a recent fully annotated edition, and I started with similar concerns. Fortunately, the different prefaces of this edition made the situation a bit clearer for me.

Basically it said that in that time (1600s) the author paid no attention to orthography, punctuation or whatever, that was essentially the role of the printer and editor (so "being true to the author's intent" is not really a reason here), and a fair bit of "modernization" was needed for this edition, especially in punctuation (until the 19th century or so each chapter was a single long paragraph). But many other things were not changed from older, more "authoritative" editions, such as old spellings and syntax (which would be considered incorrect today) and some hesitant, inconsistent spellings. All in all, I think the result is quite satisfactory: the text is readable by today's standards, but still has an old flavour in it.

I believe the case of Jane Austen is not quite the same, since she's a much more recent author and the language, orthography was more established, etc. But probably the same factors should be considered. One thing is fixing errors and mistakes, another thing is "modernizing" the text. I would probably try to make spelling, especially of names, consistent, though, at least in those cases when a particular form appears only once or twice.

[HarryT]

The inconsistent spelling of the name "Philips" is interesting, however, in that it is (according to the notes in my "Penguin Classics" edition), probably indicative of the fact that the "mis-spelt" version. "Phillips", occurs in passages which were revised many years after the book which was originally written. The book was originally written around 1796 under the title First Impressions, then laid aside for many years before being extensively revised and re-written in 1811-1812, before finally being published as Pride and Prejudice in 1813. Accordingly, my view is that it is interesting to leave such things in the text. Additionally, given that this is an early 19th century text, not a 21st century one, I prefer to have it with its original 19th century punctuation.

[nrapallo]

But are those inconsistencies and spelling errors those of the author or original type-setter/printer? Your facts are only good as your source!

But, I guess, I do see things more like DaleDe and less like HarryT, almost akin to Jellby's views. Isolated errors, if fixed or not, cannot detract from the storyline but may appear to be visually awkward if retained. In that vein, repetitive "errors" can then be surmised not to be, in fact, errors.

Perhaps time does really heal all wounds!

Consider this, in modern print editions (and even recent ebooks releases like The Hobbit), we scorn and find distasteful typographical anomalies found by what we perceive to be a "rush to market" for those pbooks/ebooks. So then it would seem, that a century's errors are more palatable than today's errors.

Of course, this is only my opinion and in no way meant to sway yours!

[roger64]

I faced a problem of this kind recently in French about the "Historiettes" from Gédeon Tallemant des Réaux (1657-59). There was a -for me- unpalatable spelling for nearly all the verbs: "étoit" instead of "était", "faisois" for "faisais" and so on. At that time, they wrote O in place of E and you find it in litterally thousand of places. I decided to change all these occurences of verbs with O, just for the confort of reading...

It certainly is not an academic recommended change. Some could call it a barbarian edition but it gives ME more pleasure to read it as most of the sentences flow more naturally for a 2009 reader

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by roger64

I faced a problem of this kind recently in French about the "Historiettes" from Gédeon Tallemant des Réaux (1657-59). There was a -for me- unpalatable spelling for nearly all the verbs: "étoit" instead of "était", "faisois" for "faisais" and so on. At that time, they wrote O in place of E and you find it in litterally thousand of places. I decided to change all these occurences of verbs with O, just for the confort of reading...

It certainly is not an academic recommended change. Some could call it a barbarian edition but it gives ME more pleasure to read it as most of the sentences flow more naturally for a 2009 reader

Clearly it depends whether you are setting out to produce an edition of a book that's for "easy reading", or one that can be used for study. In the case of my favourite "classics" authors, such as Dickens and Austen, my personal goal is the latter; in the case of authors like, say, Edgar Wallace, it's most definitely the former.

[YGG-]

Originally Posted by roger64

I faced a problem of this kind recently in French about the "Historiettes" from Gédeon Tallemant des Réaux (1657-59). There was a -for me- unpalatable spelling for nearly all the verbs: "étoit" instead of "était", "faisois" for "faisais" and so on. At that time, they wrote O in place of E and you find it in litterally thousand of places. I decided to change all these occurences of verbs with O, just for the confort of reading...

It certainly is not an academic recommended change. Some could call it a barbarian edition but it gives ME more pleasure to read it as most of the sentences flow more naturally for a 2009 reader

Ooooh! Shame on you! I do like my old French to look old : c'estoit en vieux François, morbleu!

[YGG-]

Just uploaded on FeedBooks (my first upload ever ) this excellent novel about the French Revolution & Thermidor, that existed in English ("The Gods are athirst") but not in French...
Milan Kundera, in his last book recently published here says a lot of --deserved IMHO-- good about Anatole France, and particularly about this book.
Hard work as the OCR was disastrous : the original edition they chose ("collection Pourpre", one of the first "pocket format" collection in France in the '50s) used fonts with ligatures, thus a recognition score of 98%... the word "section" was sytematically recognized as "secdon" or "liste" as "lifte" because of the ligature... A certain number of hours poring over the text (and I'm sure it's not perfect yet)...

[roger64]

Thank you.

Do you know when we'll get it or when they publish it? Or will you upload here? The latest on Feedbooks feed for me is another book from Anatole France, Thais (I do not know where is the "trema" on my qwerty keyboard)

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

(according to the notes in my "Penguin Classics" edition)

That is another (strong) reason to leave the apparent mistakes or inconsistencies in place. If you are reproducing not a particular arbitrary edition (even if it's the first), but a "scholarly" researched edition, with notes, etc. then it makes sense to just trust and respect the choices of the editor(s); if they thought a misspelling here and there was worth keeping (and they'd often say it in a footnote or preface), then you just do the same.

I come again to my case with Don Quixote, there are some words or names that seem to be misspelt or inconsistent, but if I go to the source text I usually find a note explaining how this spelling was preferred at the time, or how the different historical editions have dealt with inconsistencies. So at the end I preferred to leave almost everything unchanged. I only fixed the most obvious formatting or OCR-ish mistakes.

However, I'm also producing "Vie privée et publique des animaux" from pdf scans of a 19th century edition, and this is not such a "well thought" edition, it has some mistakes and even some upside-down e's, and I don't feel vile for correcting them. On the other hand, I'm keeping the old orthography of some words. But it's the same, one has to draw a line between the author's style and time, and the human mistakes of printers and editors (and even authors)...

[HarryT]

Uploaded a new, thoroughly-proofed, edition of my "Raffles" omnibus by E.W.Hornung. Hornung was Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law (the "A.C.D" to whom the first book in the omnibus is dedicated), and Raffles was deliberately created as a sort of "anti Sherlock Holmes" - a "gentleman thief" carrying out daring high-society robberies and defying the law. Great fun to read!

Uploaded new versions for Sony and MobiPocket.

[YGG-]

I'm working on "le Capitaine Fracasse" (Théophile Gauthier) --again from an original OCR from Gallica ... hard work; wish me good luck :grin;