Is Your Public Domain Ebook an Abridged Version?

[Critteranne]

I love Project Gutenberg and similar sites for making public domain ebooks available to everyone for free. But yesterday, I learned that those texts might come from abridged editions. And there is no way to know unless you're familiar with the original. Or if you just happen to run into the difference while having coffee and lunch at a lovely bakery.

Yesterday, I was reading the Oxford World's Classics edition of "East Lynne" by Ellen Wood, and I wanted to post a quote online to talk about it. So I went to the Project Gutenberg copy of the book to grab that quote. But the digital text was missing most of the quote! It was missing three sentences about the character Mr. Dill (about 70 words or more in total). Also, my Oxford World Classics edition doesn't include periods after "Mr" and several terms (which is supposed to be the British style), but this abridged edition added periods.

I have three old copies of East Lynne. And one was obviously abridged. The size difference is obvious. The nicest one is 596 pages, and it includes the missing text. One is 252 pages -- and the same three sentences are missing.

So when someone mentions that they paid for a Penguin Classics edition or an Oxford World's Classics edition, don't assume that they are dunderheads who don't know that they can get free copies from sites like PG. They might want a more academic edition that compares to the original text. And they might want something with footnotes.

[tomsem]

Anything on Project Gutenberg has to be in the public domain. So you will only find things based on print editions that are 80 years or more old (exact oldness varies depending on regional rules as to what constitutes 'public domain').

If these happen to be abridged editions, the blame resides with the person who contributed it to PG. Someone needs to do the unabridged edition and contribute that. (why have abridged editions on PG at all?)

And of course many of these are still 'in print' and can add value with introductions or notes.

It's interesting that there were abridged editions, presumably with blessing of the publisher. But these exist even now, for some contemporary books (indeed, there are platforms that offer these exclusively). Some great books are very long and there are people without time to read them who make do with condensed versions to at least have some sense of what they are about.

Translated works are another issue. Again though the original work might be in public domain, the best translations of them will often not be. And there is a lot of subjective judgement about what constitutes a good translation.

Formatting of public domain ebooks is another issue as well. PG is not necessarily doing beautiful or consistent formatting. So there are places like Standard EBooks that try to do a better job of it.

Kindle Store is a mess, since there can be dozens of editions to sift through and they're of highly variable quality. I usually get Delphi 'Complete Works' omnibus editions of the authors I'm interested in. And Kindle Unlimited has several hundred public domain books with audiobook companions, which avoids the mess as well.

[Quoth]

Often the full version is earlier and later re-issued version is abridged (especially paperbacks for younger readers). It's almost always done by the publisher, especially after the author's death. Rarely by author request. More common for an author's later preferred version to be longer.

Some PD editions are clearly marked as abridged. In my experience it's always the published paper edition that was abridged and it was not done by the people transferring to text.

[Quoth]

There is also the changes of a serialised version in a magazine or newspaper vs a later novel.
Then bizarrely a movie or TV show can be made from a book, but then later Disney or whoever will pay for a novelisation of the movie or TV, which is almost always poorer than the original.

Earlier translations of Jules Verne are the opposite of the regular trend in publishing as they often abridged and the later translations are usually complete. None of the complete good translations are PD. Some of the PD Verne in English are poor.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Translated works are another issue. Again though the original work might be in public domain, the best translations of them will often not be. And there is a lot of subjective judgement about what constitutes a good translation.

I’ve long made the case that it’s worth spending money on a recent translation instead of reading a public domain translation. However, much as I like Oxford World’s Classics editions in particular, I have a hard time spending more than a few bucks on an English-language book that’s in the public domain (although I will spend a few bucks!). There’s not enough value-added especially when you can access free commentary online.

Sometimes I cheat and if I’m lucky, I can read all/most of the front matter in an Amazon sample. It doesn’t get me footnotes, but it’s something. And, frankly, too copious footnotes can be a distraction. They tell me things I already know, but my concentration has been interrupted.

As for the particular example cited here, I wonder if the original source was an expurgated American version. While QC at Gutenberg is much, much better than it used to be, (everything I download these days is readable and reasonably formatted), there’s still that element of getting what you pay for. I agree that an abridged version of anything isn’t worth the epaper it’s virtually printed on even for free.

ETA:

Kindle Store is a mess, since there can be dozens of editions to sift through and they're of highly variable quality.

As with Gutenberg, I find the Amazon editions of PD books in their standard generic cover are much more reliable than they used to be, to the extent that it’s my go-to these days. Easier to “buy” on Amazon and direct download than to do the download/sideload or STK dance.

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Anything on Project Gutenberg has to be in the public domain. So you will only find things based on print editions that are 80 years or more old (exact oldness varies depending on regional rules as to what constitutes 'public domain').

I'm not sure of the copyright of the abridged edition. It's an American edition, so it might have been printed when American publishers were reprinting books from overseas without paying the authors.

Originally Posted by tomsem

If these happen to be abridged editions, the blame resides with the person who contributed it to PG. Someone needs to do the unabridged edition and contribute that. (why have abridged editions on PG at all?)

The contributor might not have known. There is no mention that it is abridged except for some vague line about "editing" in the text at the beginning.

Originally Posted by tomsem

It's interesting that there were abridged editions, presumably with blessing of the publisher. But these exist even now, for some contemporary books (indeed, there are platforms that offer these exclusively). Some great books are very long and there are people without time to read them who make do with condensed versions to at least have some sense of what they are about.

I think some publishers might have specialized in edited/abridged editions. There was probably a need/desire to put out abridged editions for readers who might have been put off by a longer text. Or because of cost concerns.

Interestingly, my abridged edition was printed by Western Printing and Lithographing Company in Racine, Wisconsin. They are still around. Today, they are known as Western Publishing, and they are best known for the Little Golden Books.

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Often the full version is earlier and later re-issued version is abridged (especally paperbacks for younger readers). It's almost always done by the publisher, especially after the author's death. Rarely by author request. More common for an author's later preferred version to be longer.

More recently, some companies have started putting out children's and young adult versions of recent popular nonfiction books. For example, there was a young adult version of the book Unbroken.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Some PD editions are clearly marked as abridged. In my experience it's always the published paper edition that was abridged and it was not done by the people transferring to text.

And there's often no way to know the paper edition was abridged. Sigh.

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’ve long made the case that it’s worth spending money on a recent translation instead of reading a public domain translation. However, much as I like Oxford World’s Classics editions in particular, I have a hard time spending more than a few bucks on an English-language book that’s in the public domain (although I will spend a few bucks!). There’s not enough value-added especially when you can access free commentary online.

Originally Posted by issybird

As for the particular example cited here, I wonder if the original source was an expurgated American version. While QC at Gutenberg is much, much better than it used to be, (everything I download these days is readable and reasonably formatted), there’s still that element of getting what you pay for. I agree that an abridged version of anything isn’t worth the epaper it’s virtually printed on even for free.

Aha! I found this.
"PREPARER’S NOTE
This text was prepared from an 1883 edition,
New York: John B. Alden, Publisher."

They might have chopped some of it up because of scandal -- but also to print a shorter book. I don't see anything scandalous about the missing sentences (highlighted in the attachment). Unless you are really into seeing subtext everywhere.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by tomsem

It's interesting that there were abridged editions, presumably with blessing of the publisher. But these exist even now, for some contemporary books (indeed, there are platforms that offer these exclusively). Some great books are very long and there are people without time to read them who make do with condensed versions to at least have some sense of what they are about.

I didn't realise till I was an adult that the "Readers Digest" multi-book hardbacks are all massively abridged (There was or is a UK version). Since then I've avoided them even at 50c in S/H bookshops and charity shops etc.

We had the actual magazine for over a decade and my dad always put it in the bathroom/toilet room. Years later he mentioned that it was very right wing and we only had it because the subscription was an annual Christmas present from someone he was friends with in the 1950s.

Mind you, I think the publisher should have got some authors to edit shorter before publication (Robert Jordan, Alexander Dumas).

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I didn't realise till I was an adult that the "Readers Digest" multi-book hardbacks are all massively abridged (There was or is a UK version). Since then I've avoided them even at 50c in S/H bookshops and charity shops etc.

Those books were always showing up at yard sales, thrift shops, etc. I wonder how many people found ways to turn those books into crafting projects...

Originally Posted by Quoth

Mind you, I think the publisher should have got some authors to edit shorter before publication (Robert Jordan, Alexander Dumas).

My American abridged copy of "East Lynne" is so teeny tiny. I think they cut both fat and bone and muscle.

[nana77]

Just as for curiosity, from Gutemberg's statement:

We offer as many freedoms to our volunteers as possible, in choices of what books to do, what formats to do them in, or any other ideas they may have concerning "the creation and distribution of eBooks."

Project Gutenberg is not in the business of establishing standards. If we were, we would have gladly accepted the request to convert an exemplary portion of our eBooks into HTML when World Wide Web was a brand new idea in 1993; we are happy to bring eBooks to our readers in as many formats as our volunteers wish to make.

In addition, we do not provide standards of accuracy above those as recommended by institutions such as the U.S. Library of Congress at the level of 99.95%.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070714...y_Michael_Hart
From Wikipedia:

"Project Gutenberg" is a trademark of the organization, and the mark cannot be used in commercial or modified redistributions of public domain texts from the project. There is no legal impediment to the reselling of works in the public domain if all references to Project Gutenberg are removed, but Gutenberg contributors have questioned the appropriateness of directly and commercially reusing content that has been formatted by volunteers. There have been instances of books being stripped of attribution to the project and sold for profit in the Kindle Store and other booksellers, one being the 1906 book Fox Trapping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gutenberg
Imho might this means that an audiobook can be made out of it?
@issybird was questioning, on a previous post (on another thread), why are there so many versions of an audiobook, if those things are possible to do that's a business lol (several versions by AI, from several version granted for free volunteers, fantastic ).

Besides that, "prepared" (like it's been wrote) is quite a weird term for "edit" - imho.

Internet Archive has at least two copies of the book you mentioned, not sure if those are too poor scans, but there are downloads options (one as 1,5 GB).

Edit: @Quoth: even if a Gutemberg version is an edit from a Publisher, which might have put a shortened version from Original, or whatever, but there are several edits throught the time...*
Idk but if that's just for to sell a book that has 200 pages left, to make it cost 8.40$ instead 10.20$...omg.

*wouldn't be that bad to see the list of changes, maybe?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I didn't realise till I was an adult that the "Readers Digest" multi-book hardbacks are all massively abridged (There was or is a UK version). Since then I've avoided them even at 50c in S/H bookshops and charity shops etc.

We had the actual magazine for over a decade and my dad always put it in the bathroom/toilet room. Years later he mentioned that it was very right wing and we only had it because the subscription was an annual Christmas present from someone he was friends with in the 1950s.

Mind you, I think the publisher should have got some authors to edit shorter before publication (Robert Jordan, Alexander Dumas).

They were abridged.
My folks gave me a Life subscription ($75 US, not available anymore) to RD when I was born. I still get it almost 80 years later. I think they got their moneys worth

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by theducks

They were abridged.
My folks gave me a Life subscription ($75 US, not available anymore) to RD when I was born. I still get it almost 80 years later. I think they got their moneys worth

How long?
1. Till you were able to read them.
2. Till you stopped reading them, if you did.

I thought they went bust and stopped for awhile until someone bought it for the juicy address list?

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

How long?
1. Till you were able to read them.
2. Till you stopped reading them, if you did.

I thought they went bust and stopped for awhile until someone bought it for the juicy address list?

UK and several other countries Reader's Digest have ceased running. Others, like the original U.S edition march on. For how much longer? Who knows.