The end of "THE END"?

[graycyn]

Should I get rid of "THE END" in a vintage text?

I've started doing some Thomas C. Hinkle horse titles for the MobileRead.com library. Only one done so far, Dapple Gray, but I have several in the scanned/OCR'd stage.

The Hinkle titles I own are all early editions. I generally like to channel what is practical of the vintage look and I suppose when it's not terribly practical (i.e. drop caps), I'll borrow styling from a different title.

But, some titles have a "THE END" after the story finishes, some don't.

For consistency, I'm thinking to dump "THE END" from all as it feels a little old-fashioned for an ebook, especially ones that will have to have modernized covers, since the only the text is known to be public domain for MobileRead.

Or is that a text "modernization" that folks here won't like? Or is it something children really DO like to see?

[Quoth]

Sometimes I add it if editing anyway. Some stories can end abruptly or ambigiously and you wonder on the ebook is it broken or did you skip. On paper it tells you a last page isn't missing.

So I'd never remove it.

There are brand new stories that have "The End", as it's not about old-fashioned, but a style decision. I've plenty of pre-WWI paper books that don't have "The End".

[JSWolf]

I never add THE END. I have no need.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I never add THE END. I have no need.

Yes, but the OP is asking obout ebooks that
1: Already have it
2: Distributed for others publicly.

Not adding "The End" on your own copy.

[JSWolf]

If THE END is in the book by the author, leave it. If it's not, don't add it.

[Turtle91]

It really is up to you... on public domain works you ARE the publisher of this version. It's usually not possible to ask the author what they want at this point so do what you think best.

Are you trying to faithfully reproduce the p-book in an electronic format? (*shudder* not practical) or are you creating a new version (with a new cover, etc)??

Personally, I get rid of them. I almost always have some kind of backmatter (about the author, also-by, copyright, etc) that shows the story is ended...I have no need of "The End".

~The End~

[Jellby]

Aren't vintage texts "old-fashioned" by definition? I add it or remove it solely to keep consistency between books of the same series/collection/author.

[hobnail]

Not only do I remove "The End" I also change the chapter numbering. The style that I hate the most is Roman numerals. I do know how to read them but what a pain in the keister to have to translate them. When I'm reworking a public domain book I use Sigil and it has a plugin to renumber the chapters and I have it use words; Twenty-Two, not 22.

Hopefully the authors aren't spinning in their graves.

[GrannyGrump]

An alternative to "The End" could be to add a small graphic image (or very large fancy font character(s)).

For an interesting take on "modernizing" vintage books, you might take a look at Standard Ebooks Manual of Style ---https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.7.0

I must confess, I have adopted many of their suggestions, and have not tried to replicate the Print Version for a very long time.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

An alternative to "The End" could be to add a small graphic image (or very large fancy font character(s)).

For an interesting take on "modernizing" vintage books, you might take a look at Standard Ebooks Manual of Style ---https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.7.0

I must confess, I have adopted many of their suggestions, and have not tried to replicate the Print Version for a very long time.

I don't really try to replicate print, but I like to keep some feel of the chapter styling, *if* within reason.

A graphic or fancy font character sounds nice, but YOU are wonderful at that sort of thing, I am not! I'd best stick with easy or I'll get no books done at all! I'm having enough trouble with cover images, as Hinkle had a rather bad habit of describing horses whose coloring is *not* particularly common!

On thinking it over, I'll leave "THE END" where present and where not present, I won't add it. I've no way to know whether the author intended it or whether a publisher just stuck it in there for the heck of it.

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Standard Ebooks. I like what they do, but I feel like their code and semantics get well beyond what *I* feel up for!

OCR for Blaze Face is done. Now I need to catch up on housework for a few days and give my eyes a badly needed break.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I don't really try to replicate print, but I like to keep some feel of the chapter styling, *if* within reason.

On thinking it over, I'll leave "THE END" where present and where not present, I won't add it. I've no way to know whether the author intended it or whether a publisher just stuck it in there for the heck of it.

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Standard Ebooks. I like what they do, but I feel like their code and semantics get well beyond what *I* feel up for!

I'd agree with all of that. 100%

In general the content is the thing, not the appearance on the paper. It helps to have a different style from the main body for:
Chapter Headings
letters, notes, signs, labels, telegrams, console text, sms, SM messages etc.
Epigrams, preambles, non-chapter headings, captions, marginalia/flushed right notes, inline footnotes.
Lists (and list start character or numbers are manually typed).

I think madness to replicate paper styles, especially if the Published is carried away with SMALL CAPS, drop caps, giant colophons etc. IMO the centred * * * does for a major scene break and ~ for a minor break.

Most styling and formatting (except for maybe poetry) is an invention of the publisher and not in the intent of the author. I offer simpler solutions (always accepted except once) to an author that goes mad on format/style. With one I sent back MSS with over 1000 … and — removed. He'd just discovered how to type them! It was accepted. I had left in some!

[GrannyGrump]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Standard Ebooks. I like what they do, but I feel like their code and semantics get well beyond what *I* feel up for!

I know precisely what you mean. I don't use their (maddening) markup code, but I do like the idea of killing italics on currently common words (alibi, role, cafe, etc); killing hyphens on words we don't hyphenate any more (apologies to purists, but to-day with a hyphen is just irritating to me), and a bunch of other simplifications they use. So I steal the ideas, and use simple markup.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

An alternative to "The End" could be to add a small graphic image (or very large fancy font character(s)).

For an interesting take on "modernizing" vintage books, you might take a look at Standard Ebooks Manual of Style ---https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.7.0

I must confess, I have adopted many of their suggestions, and have not tried to replicate the Print Version for a very long time.

I do say that Standard Ebooks styling is overly complicated for such simply formatted eBooks. They much such a mess. I would ignore their style guide. You can make an eBook much simply formatted by using the time honored make it as simple as possible. Standard Ebooks does the opposite and does it as complicated as they can. Heck, some of their ePub is broken and because of this, ADE on a Kobo finds an error in the CSS and ignores the entire CSS.

You can do a much much better job then Standard Ebooks does because they take the position, do it complicated and use code that you don't need.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I think madness to replicate paper styles, especially if the Published is carried away with SMALL CAPS, drop caps, giant colophons etc. IMO the centred * * * does for a major scene break and ~ for a minor break.

I find to me, if you have different ways of designating a section break, it looks like an error. Like some eBooks that use a space for a section break and because the pBook uses * * * to designate a section break at the end of a printed page, it looks off. I would use the same mark for a section break. I now use a 20% 2px line to designate section breaks.

Most styling and formatting (except for maybe poetry) is an invention of the publisher and not in the intent of the author. I offer simpler solutions (always accepted except once) to an author that goes mad on format/style. With one I sent back MSS with over 1000 … and — removed. He'd just discovered how to type them! It was accepted. I had left in some!

I do agree that what's done in print does not always work for an eBook. All that wasted space for the chapter header, different size fonts where they should (IMHO) be the same size, smaller then 1em for the body text size, blockquotes that are using too wide a L/R margin and sometimes a smaller font size, L/R margins that are too wide, paragraph spaces, line height, and other things that don't work well for eBooks.

Then there is ... with spaces (no) and em dashes with spaces (no).

It's just a mess what can be done to eBooks that do not need to be done.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I know precisely what you mean. I don't use their (maddening) markup code, but I do like the idea of killing italics on currently common words (alibi, role, cafe, etc); killing hyphens on words we don't hyphenate any more (apologies to purists, but to-day with a hyphen is just irritating to me), and a bunch of other simplifications they use. So I steal the ideas, and use simple markup.

Well done!