Is Your Public Domain Ebook an Abridged Version?

[Quoth]

From the mid-1960s to early 1980s, full-length, original works of non-fiction were published under the imprint Reader's Digest Press and distributed by Thomas Y. Crowell Co. Beginning in 1982, a series of classic novels was published as World's Best Reading and made available by mail order to magazine subscribers.

Never seen those in UK or Ireland. I wonder was it USA only?

[theducks]

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?

1)By the 3rd grade I was putting serious wear on my Library Card. I had read all the Mysteries (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys.., The Horse stories and was reading Inventor Biographies , I never read RD cover to cover, but had my fav sections.

Word power is one of my favs and I usual score in the top level (Last month was the first time in decades that I was further down )

2) I still read them (in the Porcelain Reading Room where Electronics are banned) .

I subscribed to Analog SF for 40 years. Those were red cover to cover in 1 or 2 days. (A few of those authors hang out here at MR)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

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!).

Just noting that I bought the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Tom Jones today. It cost a net $2.69 (30¢ kickback on a Kobo price match).

[Ridcully]

FYI you can also find books in public domain formatted for ereaders on Wikipedia's Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org). Not as extensive as Archive.org and Project Gutenberg, but often looks better on the ereader.

[icallaci]

Thank you for the link. I didn't know about this source for public domain books.

Originally Posted by Ridcully

FYI you can also find books in public domain formatted for ereaders on Wikipedia's Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org). Not as extensive as Archive.org and Project Gutenberg, but often looks better on the ereader.

[Quoth]

Archive org is problematic to useless:
1) They mostly have just scans. So PDF, The ebook formats are useless because it's the unproofed / not checked automatic OCR. Gutenberg are human proofed.
2) They only take account of copyright if threatened with a suit from a publisher. They ignore all other reports of copyright violation and their "open library" deliberately ignored copyright.

It's good for a PDF of something in the Public Domain that's not in print nor on any real PC ebook site.