WSC Goes Electronic

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chateaust...@att.net

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Jun 18, 2012, 4:59:41 PM6/18/12
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According to the Wall Street Journal this morning, Churchill's writings will soon be published in electronic form.  I have a sneaking suspicion he would approve.

Jonathan Hayes

Lee Pollock

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Jun 18, 2012, 5:20:44 PM6/18/12
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Rosetta Books will be releasing these e-books (for Kindle and other platforms) later this year and into next, as digitization of individual volumes is completed.  I will know more as the project progresses and we will publicize the details through The Churchill Centre website and Chartwell Bulletin.

 

This commendable initiative by the Churchill Literary Estate and Rosetta will bring Churchill’s works to a broader and perhaps younger audience than has heretofore been the case and should be a boon to our educational efforts in the U.S. and internationally.

 

If any of you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to contact me.

 

Thanks.

 

Lee

 

Lee Pollock

Executive Director

The Churchill Centre

200 West Madison Street

Suite 1700

Chicago, IL 60606

(312) 658-6027

lpol...@winstonchurchill.org

 

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Editor, Finest Hour

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Jun 19, 2012, 11:11:37 AM6/19/12
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Jonathan: I had the pleasure of helping steer them to the right editions (not those edited Collected Works-Leo Cooper ones monkeyed with by Fred Woods), and Mark Weber found them inexpensive copies with true texts they could scan. The result will be Churchill's words as he signed off on them. Reported in full in Finest Hour 155/Summer. We cannot underestimate the importance of this step forward. Huge credit to Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown who drove the effort.

Raphael Saldanha

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Jun 19, 2012, 11:15:25 AM6/19/12
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This appears to be a very nice project. But what can be said about the files available at the Project Gutenberg? http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/213 Are they good sources?

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Editor, Finest Hour <tcc...@sneakemail.com> wrote:
Jonathan: I had the pleasure of helping steer them to the right editions (not those edited Collected Works-Leo Cooper ones monkeyed with by Fred Woods), and Mark Weber found them inexpensive copies with true texts they could scan. The result will be Churchill's words as he signed off on them. Reported in full in Finest Hour 155/Summer. We cannot underestimate the importance of this step forward. Huge credit to Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown who drove the effort.

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Atenciosamente,

Raphael Saldanha
saldanha...@gmail.com

Allen Packwood

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Jun 19, 2012, 12:07:04 PM6/19/12
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I am afraid that this is the US author Winston Churchill, not our Winston Spencer-Churchill.


From: church...@googlegroups.com [mailto:church...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Raphael Saldanha
Sent: 19 June 2012 16:15
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic

Robert Courts

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Jun 19, 2012, 12:14:46 PM6/19/12
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Allen is right about that, but these are our WSC:


I've always wondered about the copyright position. 

These early books are available on the Amazon Kindle store, in fact. 

Raphael Saldanha

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Jun 19, 2012, 12:19:08 PM6/19/12
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Oh! I'm sorry about the misleading link. Thanks for the correct one.
Atenciosamente,

Raphael Saldanha
saldanha...@gmail.com

Barbara Langworth

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Jun 19, 2012, 12:56:15 PM6/19/12
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These all seem to be works by the American author.

Barbara Langworth

chateaust...@att.net

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Jun 19, 2012, 3:39:49 PM6/19/12
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Excellent - very happy to know that.


From: "Editor, Finest Hour" <tcc...@sneakemail.com>
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Church...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, June 19, 2012 8:12:11 AM
Subject: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic

Jonathan: I had the pleasure of helping steer them to the right editions (not those edited Collected Works-Leo Cooper ones monkeyed with by Fred Woods), and Mark Weber found them inexpensive copies with true texts they could scan. The result will be Churchill's words as he signed off on them. Reported in full in Finest Hour 155/Summer. We cannot underestimate the importance of this step forward. Huge credit to Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown who drove the effort.

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Allen Packwood

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Jun 20, 2012, 3:53:11 AM6/20/12
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Many thanks Robert. The copyright question would be one for Curtis Brown. the one thing I have learned is that it is never as straightforward as you think!
 
Allen


From: church...@googlegroups.com [mailto:church...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Raphael Saldanha
Sent: 19 June 2012 17:19

Robert Courts

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Jun 20, 2012, 5:04:33 AM6/20/12
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No, it isn't. I think I drew this to their attention about 10 years ago, but the result escapes me. But list members might like to just hold off on Gutenberg until we know. 

David Turrell

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Jun 20, 2012, 9:53:56 PM6/20/12
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There appears to be a general perception that Churchill’s early works are in the public domain – Malakand, London to Ladysmith, Ian Hamilton, and River War – and hence they are the ones mostly commonly pounced on by the print-on-demand vultures.

 

I cannot judge if this perception is accurate or not.  However, there is a very interesting exchange of letters in the Churchill archives which may cast some light.  See CHAR 8/274 120, 121 and 124.

 

Churchill, in July 1930, writes to Longmans Green indicating that he wishes to quote passages from those works in ‘My Early Life’ which was then in the later stages of composition.  He indicates that, since the works have long been out of print, the Longmans copyright may have expired but that in any case he is looking for their permission and coyly suggests that they might wish to return the rights to him.  He makes an offer of payment but, knowing WSC, it is clearly half-hearted at best.

 

Longmans respond that they are happy to transfer ‘such rights as we may have in the copyright to yourself. For this we should not like to ask any payment’.

 

It seems, therefore, that Longmans actively relinquished their copyright back to WSC – but the key question is still whether, in 1930, they still retained any rights to relinquish.

 

I would gladly quote the two letters in their entirety but, ironically, copyright considerations prevent me doing so.

 

Best,

 

Dave

 


chateaust...@att.net

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Jun 21, 2012, 12:12:24 AM6/21/12
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www.ManyBooks.net has Malakand Field Force, River War, London to Ladysmith, River War and Liberalism and the Social Problem for free download.  I have no idea about what editions these are.  www.gutenberg.org has, plus the above and more, South African Memories by Lady Sarah Wilson (WSC's aunt) which is a ding-dong good read.  In her day she was as famous as WSC.  Winston S. Churchill is the one you want. Winston Churchill is the American novelist.

Jonathan Hayes



From: David Turrell <datu...@verizon.net>
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, June 20, 2012 6:54:26 PM
Subject: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic

David Turrell

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Aug 4, 2012, 12:28:51 AM8/4/12
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Where are you downloading/sampling from? What are the reviews you refer to?

-----Original Message-----
From: church...@googlegroups.com [mailto:church...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of meanmrmustid
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2012 11:05 PM
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Church...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic

This news was at first met by much excitement, seeing that 95% of my reading
is now done on the ipad, however looking at reviews of the volumes of the
Second World War they have already scanned and sampling myself, the volumes
are littered with scanning errors which one, makes this occaisionally a
chore to read and two, a less professional job that these works deserve.

While I understand there is difficulty in scanning a book in what the
scanner picks up there should be at least someone proof reading these before
they are on sale, and if there are errors after they are put on sale they
need to be quickly corrected so an up to date version can be redownloaded.
Do we know if there have been any thing put in place to make sure that these
new titles that are being published are near as correct as possible?

I also assume that we are getting a scan of the four volumn Colledted
Essays? Has it been confirmed that the entire Colledted edition will be
published? And is there any chance that the collected speeches will also be
published digitally

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Editor, Finest Hour

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Aug 4, 2012, 9:37:40 AM8/4/12
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This news was at first met by much excitement, seeing that 95% of my reading is now done on the ipad, however looking at reviews of the volumes of the Second World War they have already scanned and sampling myself, the volumes are littered with scanning errors which one, makes this occaisionally a chore to read and two, a less professional job that these works deserve.

I also assume that we are getting a scan of the four volume Colledted Essays?  

====
Thanks for that information, I will pass it along to Rosettabooks. We have to be optimists and assume that modern scanning techniques will improve on the quality of that early scan of SWW. 

I have so not persuaded them to include the invaluable COLLECTED ESSAYS, but haven't given up. They could be the centerpiece of the project, since they are nowhere available except in the expensive original hardbacks. Nor has Rosetta planned to include the COMPLETE SPEECHES. If the basic line is a success, that will lead to expansion.

Rosettabooks is NOT scanning volumes from the 1974 COLLECTED WORKS. Per my book, "A Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill," pp 367-68, only eight of WSC's original titles in the COLLECTED WORKS are true texts. The rest were reset, and some were edited by Fred Woods. Ronald Cohen and I have labored to direct them to original texts in the form WSC finally signed off on them. For example, the will use the University of Chicago MARLBOROUGH, which is offprinted from the 1947 Harrap edition, Churchill's final approved text.


Keith Leonard

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Aug 4, 2012, 9:48:09 AM8/4/12
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I too very much would like to see the COLLECTED ESSAYS scanned as they are an invaluable asset to the Churchill canon. Scholars and laymen alike have everything to gain from this inestimable resource.

Wishing for the best,


Keith Thomas Leonard 



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Antoine Capet

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Aug 4, 2012, 1:36:08 PM8/4/12
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Sorry, Chris, but

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Rosetta+Churchill

produces no relevant results!

A.C.
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From: Chris Sharp
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 10:10 AM
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] Re: WSC Goes Electronic



On Saturday, August 4, 2012 2:28:51 PM UTC+10, Dave Turrell wrote: Where are you downloading/sampling from? What are the reviews
you refer to?

-----Original Message-----





The reviews are on Amazon. If you search for Rosetta Churchill and sort reviews by most recent you will see many people
complaining about errors. The same applies to another title they have released 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
If you have a Kindle, or an the app for Ipad you can download a sample of about the first 5% of any books you can buy and check it
out for yourself.
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