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.

[jackm8]

Their reflowable formats are poor, often useless, but as far as accuracy goes, most Archives fixed page books are the best there is. They're full books, scanned from cover to cover, with plainly documented editions and sources. When it comes to blotches and stains on the paper, you clearly see them, and it's often very easy to spot errors that would give machine OCR nightmares, and would often even cause problems in case of human proofing.
(image as example)

Formatting is flawless, illustrations of highest quality available as far as e-books are concerned, often far better than commercial books. Main issue is just sheer amount of content that needs to be sifted through when deciding on what to pick.