[Next production] The Ponson Case by Freeman Wills Crofts

[Robin Whittleton]

The penultimate Crofts currently on Gutenberg, and the last one where scans are readily available. This is his second novel and is pre-Inspector-French, so I’ll go with a normal oil painting for the cover, potentially something to do with trains?

PG transcription: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72235 (courtesy of Brian Raiter)

Scans: https://archive.org/details/bwb_KU-426-728/

Repo: https://github.com/robinwhittleton/freeman-wills-crofts_the-ponson-case

-Robin

[Alex Cabal]

OK, David will manage this with Weijia reviewing.

On 9/16/25 3:05 PM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> The penultimate Crofts currently on Gutenberg, and the last one where
> scans are readily available. This is his second novel and is pre-
> Inspector-French, so I’ll go with a normal oil painting for the cover,
> potentially something to do with trains?
>

> PG transcription: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72235 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72235> (courtesy of Brian Raiter)
> Scans: https://archive.org/details/bwb_KU-426-728/ <https://archive.org/
> details/bwb_KU-426-728/>
> Repo: https://github.com/robinwhittleton/freeman-wills-crofts_the-
> ponson-case <https://github.com/robinwhittleton/freeman-wills-
> crofts_the-ponson-case>
>
> -Robin
>
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[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, noted.

[Robin Whittleton]

I’d like to suggest this painting by William Widgery as cover art: https://rammcollections.org.uk/collections/f9f03932-c020-3de9-b5c8-4d5143b7c415/. Unfortunately, although the manual has the RAMM in the acceptable CC0 sources list, it doesn’t look like the artworks DB has been updated to be OK with that yet. Regardless, I’ve pushed it up to GitHub, will rebase it out if it turns out it’s not acceptable for some reason.

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[David Reimer]

Looks fine to me, Robin, and explicitly CC0 with RAMM in the approved sources. I see the cover subject (river!) is not far off some of the hardcopy editions of this title. (Quite "delicate" for oil - I wondered at first if it was watercolour!)

Hopefully we can get the DB to accept it. (Alex?)

[Robin Whittleton]

The necessary body in the murder story is discovered at the bottom of some rapids in a small river, and the landscape is about right.

Anyway, we’re ready for review: https://github.com/robinwhittleton/freeman-wills-crofts_the-ponson-case. Notes:

• A mostly easy production, no real problems.
• There are a couple of illustrations. Brian has already written alt text for them for the PG transcription so I retained that and marked his as annotator.
• The one piece of custom CSS was to replicate a particular arrangement of a model number from the scans. That required an lint override due to the small font size, but the model number is replicated in normal size text later so I’m not worried.
• I have, once again with Crofts, gone overboard with <time> markup – it’s the closest I get to OCD – with 441 occurrences.
• Will get the artwork into the DB when it accepts RAMM URLs.

-Robin

<thumbnail_1442ca2c3bed92b6ae2eeb0cc49a2629138893c5_EBOK_portrait.jpg>

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[Alex Cabal]

Thanks, I've added it to the system so you can add upload the artwork now.

On 9/27/25 2:51 PM, David Reimer wrote:
> Looks fine to me, Robin, and explicitly CC0 with RAMM in the approved
> sources. I see the cover subject (river!) is not far off some of the
> hardcopy editions of this title. (Quite "delicate" for oil - I wondered
> at first if it was watercolour!)
>
> Hopefully we can get the DB to accept it. (Alex?)
>
> On Sat, 27 Sept 2025 at 20:40, Robin Whittleton wrote:
>
> I’d like to suggest this painting by William Widgery as cover art:
> https://rammcollections.org.uk/collections/f9f03932-c020-3de9-

> b5c8-4d5143b7c415/ <https://rammcollections.org.uk/collections/
> f9f03932-c020-3de9-b5c8-4d5143b7c415/>. Unfortunately, although the

> manual has the RAMM in the acceptable CC0 sources list, it doesn’t
> look like the artworks DB has been updated to be OK with that yet.
> Regardless, I’ve pushed it up to GitHub, will rebase it out if it
> turns out it’s not acceptable for some reason.
>

> thumbnail_1442ca2c3bed92b6ae2eeb0cc49a2629138893c5_EBOK_portrait.jpg

>
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[David]

Thanks, Alex - that one's added.

[Robin Whittleton]

Sorry to poke Weijia, but did you see this one was ready for review?

-Robin

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[Weijia Cheng]

Oh, whoops! Sorry, I missed it between the other messages. I'll try and get on it in the next few days.

[Weijia Cheng]

I filed a review with a few minor issues. Sorry for the delay.

[Weijia Cheng]

Alex, this is ready for you.

[Alex Cabal]

Looks good Robin, I've released it. Thanks!

On 10/4/25 10:11 AM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> Alex, this is ready for you.
>
> On Saturday, October 4, 2025 at 8:52:43 AM UTC-4 Weijia Cheng wrote:
>
> I filed a review with a few minor issues. Sorry for the delay.
>
> On Thursday, October 2, 2025 at 5:16:48 PM UTC-4 Weijia Cheng wrote:
>
> Oh, whoops! Sorry, I missed it between the other messages. I'll
> try and get on it in the next few days.
>
> On Thursday, October 2, 2025 at 2:16:35 PM UTC-4 robin wrote:
>
> Sorry to poke Weijia, but did you see this one was ready for
> review?
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 28 Sep 2025, at 15:19, Robin Whittleton
>> <ro...@reala.net> wrote:
>>
>> The necessary body in the murder story is discovered at
>> the bottom of some rapids in a small river, and the
>> landscape is about right.
>>

>> Anyway, we’re ready for review: https://github.com/
>> robinwhittleton/freeman-wills-crofts_the-ponson-case
>> <https://github.com/robinwhittleton/freeman-wills-
>> crofts_the-ponson-case>. Notes:
>>
>> * A mostly easy production, no real problems.
>> * There are a couple of illustrations. Brian has already

>> written alt text for them for the PG transcription so
>> I retained that and marked his as annotator.

>> * The one piece of custom CSS was to replicate a

>> particular arrangement of a model number from the
>> scans. That required an lint override due to the small
>> font size, but the model number is replicated in
>> normal size text later so I’m not worried.

>> * I have, once again with Crofts, gone overboard with

>> <time> markup – it’s the closest I get to OCD – with
>> 441 occurrences.

>> * Will get the artwork into the DB when it accepts RAMM

>> URLs.
>>
>>
>> -Robin
>>
>>> On 27 Sep 2025, at 21:51, David Reimer
>>> <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Looks fine to me, Robin, and explicitly CC0 with RAMM in
>>> the approved sources. I see the cover subject (river!) is
>>> not far off some of the hardcopy editions of this title.
>>> (Quite "delicate" for oil - I wondered at first if it was
>>> watercolour!)
>>>
>>> Hopefully we can get the DB to accept it. (Alex?)
>>>
>>> On Sat, 27 Sept 2025 at 20:40, Robin Whittleton wrote:
>>>
>>> I’d like to suggest this painting by William Widgery

>>> as cover art: https://rammcollections.org.uk/
>>> collections/f9f03932-c020-3de9-b5c8-4d5143b7c415/
>>> <https://rammcollections.org.uk/collections/f9f03932-

>>> c020-3de9-b5c8-4d5143b7c415/>. Unfortunately,

>>> although the manual has the RAMM in the acceptable
>>> CC0 sources list, it doesn’t look like the artworks
>>> DB has been updated to be OK with that yet.
>>> Regardless, I’ve pushed it up to GitHub, will rebase
>>> it out if it turns out it’s not acceptable for some
>>> reason.
>>>
>>> <thumbnail_1442ca2c3bed92b6ae2eeb0cc49a2629138893c5_EBOK_portrait.jpg>
>>>
>>>
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>>> the Google Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails
>>> from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
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>>> d/msgid/standardebooks/

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>>
>>
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