Boots’ boots, or Boots’s?

[Quoth]

I'm not writing about which editions they have but their attitude to proof reading. 1st priority is fixing OCR and 2nd is OBVIOUS typesetting errors.

Yes, there are different known published editions. That's not the issue. The aim is to produce an ebook of one of them, not to create yet another edition!

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

...

UK Publishers leave USA texts as is. USA Publishers usually Americanize, but the author is still alive (e.g. J.K. Rowlings). American Publishers seem to think their readers are totally dumb. Hence Americans importing UK editions!

I read too much of both US & UK style books. I actually got yelled at by a boss's boss's boss, when I used a British spelling in my email...

I still don't know - nor do I care - what is the proper spelling of grey/gray??

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

You are aware that Gutenberg is not necessarily using first editions? For instance, for "Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark" by Mary Wollstonecraft they use an edition from 1889 - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3529/3529-h/3529-h.htm
I've proofread it against the original 1796 edition. Gutenberg has not changed the text they've scanned, but that has already been done in 1889. It's simply not the case that texts go through centuries of publishing unchanged. Also, in most cases, we do not even know the author's original version, because that's already been changed by the editor of the first edition. OK, enough of this, I'm doing my thing, and you don't deem me competent and don't approve of it, let's leave it at that.

We don't think you aren't competent. What's being said is to leave the spelling the way it is in whatever edition book you are making into an eBook. If there are mistakes because that's how it was back then, leave them be. If the wodring has changed since then, leave it be. Don't make any changes because you think what's there is wrong. If it's the way it was published then that's how we want to read it. So please don't fix what you think is wrong unless it is wrong because it doesn't match the way it was published.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

I don't know anyone from India face to face, I was making assumptions based on Wiki research of Nagaland.

Nagaland is a small Eastern state, my interest in Indian English is linked to having relatives there who are among the 250K who have it as their first language. Despite having a tiny number of L1 speakers, the number of L2 and L3 speakers make it numerically the most-spoken variant of English.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Yes, there are different known published editions. That's not the issue. The aim is to produce an ebook of one of them, not to create yet another edition!

Sorry, this exactly is my aim, and I don't see why it shouldn't be.

[Jellby]

For the record, I support you, Robert.

Keep the author's intent, indeed. But what is/was the author's intent? Do not assume that any printed edition is a fair rendering of the author's intent. Some publishers simply ignore the author, some authors couldn't care less about the spelling/typesetting. Especially as we go back in time, typesetters were the masters and they would change the author's words (and apostrophes) as they saw fit. That's on one side.

Then, if all we have is an electronic version that may or may not have been based on a particular printed edition, and may or may not have been further corrected/adapted, taking it as the "author's intent" is even more doubtful.

Besides, some authors were "wrong", even by the standards of their time, even by their own standards (i.e. inconsistent). In some cases this is maybe intentional and worth keeping, in other cases it is just sloppiness and makes for an unpleasant reading. Should we correct these? Maybe.

Finally, we are not reproducing a particular printed edition, or even the original manuscript. We are creating a new edition, with whatever standards we set, and it will be better or worse than other editions. The fact that it's different from the first edition does not make it worse.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

Sorry, this exactly is my aim, and I don't see why it shouldn't be.

You said, in one of your original posts, that you treat dead authors exactly as you do living--which says to me that you're not exactly cleaning up the OCR; you're imposing upon it your own standards. You're rewriting it, as an editor would do if he were working with a living author.

But this client isn't alive. He's not here to accept or reject your suggestions. He's dead. This isn't a working partnership; it's an imposition of what you think "should" be, over what the author/publisher thought it should be in the first place.

If you want to take some PD book and create your own edition thereof, your own view of it, I guess that's your prerogative, just as there are a thousand publishers out there with P&P "continuations" or "variations," etc. but to me, there is a massive distinction between republishing a digital, cleaned-up version of Pride & Prejudice and a rewritten version.

I mean, hell, really--what's the difference if you clean up the language in P&P, or grammar, or whatever, versus rewriting the ending? Some arguments about "degree"?

I'm genuinely not being argumentative; I'm asking. Given that the author has died and is not here to argue with you over what you're deciding on his/her behalf, at what point does it stop being the PD book?

Jellby argues that we don't "know" the author's intent--but the one damn thing we do have is the actual, physical book from which the scans were made. At some point, we have to make certain assumptions and to me, if a book has made it into print, that gives it some degree of gravitas. If naught else, someone, somewhere, put some amount of hard-earned into the publication, which in and of itself, created some amount of "rights."

Hitch

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Jellby argues that we don't "know" the author's intent--but the one damn thing we do have is the actual, physical book from which the scans were made. At some point, we have to make certain assumptions and to me, if a book has made it into print, that gives it some degree of gravitas. If naught else, someone, somewhere, put some amount of hard-earned into the publication, which in and of itself, created some amount of "rights."

Hitch

I am glad that I have at least one supporter here - thank you, Jellby!

What I do not understand is why editing is only allowed to publishers of printed books (where, we agree, it has always happened), but not to a publisher of ebooks? Or is it simply money, that buys this right? A company is allowed to do it, but not a person? When the book is sold, it's ok, but when it is offered for free, it isn't?

When I "rewrite" a book - usually, that means modernizing the spelling of a few words, fix some punctuation issues, and, in some cases, add my own explanatory footnotes - I do not force other digital editions, for instance Gutenberg's, off the Internet. So, what is the problem?

Anyone who wants to read the digital version of a printed book can still do so, I'm not substituting my edition for theirs - I just offer an alternative, and am always open about the editing that I have done. No reason to give me the welcome I'd expect from a Bible study group if I walked in and asked how to chant Hail Satan. What I have learned from this discussion, of course, is not to ask for help with my work here.

[JSWolf]

Robert, most people on MR who would want to read that book would want to do so as it was originally published and not how you think it should be. So wake up and stop it. Given that most people here won't want your version, either post it someplace else or do it as we want it which is as it was published.

[j.p.s]

I'm pretty sure that what RobertDDL wants to do is well within uploaders' discretion and that no one can claim to know what "most people here want" on this matter.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I'm pretty sure that what RobertDDL wants to do is well within uploaders' discretion and that no one can claim to know what "most people here want" on this matter.

But what's the point of doing it and posting it here when we don't want to read it?

[Jellby]

I don't think anyone is suggesting changing "dog" for "cat", or to suppress the "n*" word, or to turn "strumpet" into "trumpet".

This whole thing started with "is it Boots' or Boots's?", which is a legitimate question (especially from a non-native speaker). Could it have been a mistake, a misprint, a changing spelling standard, a "smart" spell corrector somewhere in the line from the author to the current electronic source? Answer: No, most probably not, native speakers now and in the writer's time would consider "Boots'" correct. Case solved. No grave robbers around.

If we must be true to the original, we should also use the same font, margins, paper, binding, cover, price, etc. as the first edition... The author sanctioned the book with centered page numbers below the text, who are we to change that?

[PoP]

maybe should be read as

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But what's the point of doing it and posting it here when we don't want to read it?

[Quoth]

Maybe it's fine to upload here as long as it's clear that it's a personally revised new edition, not simply a transcription?

I don't know what the rules are about uploading contemporary rewriting of texts. I'd have thought it's fine as long as it's VERY CLEAR what has been done.

The font face, margins etc are irrelevant. Those are not content, but on ebook especially user defined choices. They do not affect the meaning. Spelling and punctuation changes do affect the meaning.

However, people can make what ever changes they like on public domain texts. They should make it very clear that they are effectively rewriting if going beyond the basic proof editing of a transcriber.

[elibrarian]

Since I'm not english nor have english as my mother tongue, I should probably keep my head down, but I have to agree with OP and Jellby: modernising the orthography and correcting obvious mistakes must be allowed. (After all this is what I've done for nearly 20 years now, and making no secret of it. But then I haven't uploaded anything to Mobileread's library – yet.)

We have had various orthographic reforms over the last hundred years here in Denmark, and each time it happens, then the publishers (of pbooks, anyway) reprint old books with new orthography and usually also correct a few of the earlier editions' printer's errors. But now, in the age of ebooks, this practice is suddenly illegal? There are, of course, authors, whose orthography and strange wording is "part of the experience", so to speak - we have quite a few here, e.g. Mogens Klitgaard and Herman Bang – and in those instances the editor/publisher should step down and leave things as they are. But then again, even Joyce's Ulysses, which was mentioned in a previous post, exists in various "corrected and annotated" editions.

I see it as a way of making the old books readable and enjoyable for modern, not necessarily academic readers (and I admit we have more obstacles here in Denmark, what with old editions printed in blackletter/fraktur, old spelling practises and so on - english seems to be a more stable animal than danish), and sometimes it feels more like translating than transcribing - which leads me to this question: If you transcribe, say, an 1850 translation of Balzac and make an epub of it, you should (according to some of the posters here) keep the old orthography right down to the last comma and spelling error, but: if you translate the same Balzac novel in 2019, would you try to emulate the orthography of your language, as it were in 1850 (even if you knew it in the necessary details)? I think not …

As usual, just my two-pennies/cents worth.

Regards, Kim