[Next Project] Cakes and Ale, by W. Somerset Maugham

[Ron Stewart]

With the addition of support for sourcing projects from Faded Page in the latest updates to the SE toolset, I'd like to propose Cakes and Ale, by W. Somerset Maugham, published in 1930.

Transcription: https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20170731

Scans for the 1930 printing: https://archive.org/details/CakesAndAleMaugham/

Ron Stewart

[Alex Cabal]

OK! Make sure to include the subtitle in the metadata. Please send a
link to your repo once you start.

It was always possible to use Faded Page transcriptions, you just had to
do it by hand.

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[Ron Stewart]

Thank you, Alex.

The repo is at https://github.com/we3geeks/w-somerset-maugham_cakes-and-ale

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Robin will manage with Lukas reviewing.

On 1/23/26 10:19 PM, Ron Stewart wrote:
> Thank you, Alex.
>
> The repo is at https://github.com/we3geeks/w-somerset-maugham_cakes-and-ale
>
> On Friday, January 23, 2026 at 4:51:10 PM UTC-7 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK! Make sure to include the subtitle in the metadata. Please send a
> link to your repo once you start.
>
> It was always possible to use Faded Page transcriptions, you just
> had to
> do it by hand.
>
> On 1/23/26 5:48 PM, Ron Stewart wrote:
> > With the addition of support for sourcing projects from Faded
> Page in
> > the latest updates to the SE toolset, I'd like to propose Cakes
> and Ale,
> > by W. Somerset Maugham, published in 1930.
> >
> > Transcription: https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?

> pid=20170731 <https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20170731>

> > Scans for the 1930 printing: https://archive.org/details/

> CakesAndAleMaugham/ <https://archive.org/details/CakesAndAleMaugham/>

> >
> >
> > Ron Stewart
> >
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[Ron Stewart]

I've finished my first pass at proofreading and have a small number of questions on items I made note of.

- Ch. 1 includes a hyphenated reference to "Hong-Kong". Searching the SE corpus, I see a mix of hyphenated and unhyphenated, with more on the unhyphenated side. Should the hyphen be retained? And if not, would that be considered an editorial change?
- Ch. 2 includes a partial book title: "... I admired Walter Pater, but heavens how Marius bored me!", presumably referring to "Marius the Epicurean"; should "Marius" in this context be marked up and semanticated as a book title?
- Ch. 20 includes a hyphenated reference to "Humpty-Dumpty", appearing in the text in the sentence "Humpty-Dumpty had had a great fall." The SE corpus has most instances of Humpty Dumpty without the hyphen, but two hyphenated. Should the hyphen be retained?

[Robin Whittleton]

1. Looks like we modernise it to “Hong Kong” already, but only for the lowercase k version (this was added only 3 months ago). Feel free to change it to Hong Kong in an editorial commit.
2. Yes.
3. Up to you. The Wikipedia page has no hyphen, so it would be a candidate for amending, again in an Editorial commit.

-Robin

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[Ron Stewart]

Thank you, Robin.

[Ron Stewart]

I'm struggling to find an image for the cover, in part because the link between the title and the story itself is pretty oblique. After looking through almost all of the linked possible sources from the "Art and Images" section of the SEMoS, I've come up with the three possibilities listed below in my order of preference.

- "Blue and Silver", David Muirhead, 1929 (https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/assetbank-birminghammuseums/action/viewAsset?id=8207) - A representation of Rosie Driffield, a key character in the story. When her portrait is painted mid-way through the story, it has a profound effect on both the painter (“She’s the very devil to paint,” said Hillier, looking at her and at his picture. “You see, she’s all gold, her face and her hair, and yet she doesn’t give you a golden effect, she gives you a silvery effect.”) and on the narrator ("I stared at her and I stared at the picture. I had such a funny little feeling in my heart. It was as though someone softly plunged a sharp knife into it, but it was not an unpleasant sensation at all, painful but strangely agreeable; and then suddenly I felt quite weak at the knees. But now I do not know if I remember Rosie in the flesh or in the picture.”).

- "Mug, Book, Biscuits, and Match", John Frederick Peto, 1893 (https://www.nga.gov/artworks/164948-mug-book-biscuits-and-match) - A more literal take on the title of the book, with the image cropped to feature the book (given the literary subject matter of the book), the mug ("ale"), and one of the biscuits ("cakes").

- "Portrait of Thomas Hardy", Reginald Grenville Eves, 1924 (https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/assetbank-birminghammuseums/action/viewAsset?id=8353)  - A representation of Edward Driffield, a key character in the book who was widely believed to have been based on Hardy.

I would welcome thoughts on any of the three.

Ron

[Robin Whittleton]

First or third look good. The literal cakes and ale painting feels like it would be hard to crop in a satisfying way to work around the titlebox. Do you have a preference?

-Robin

On 24 Feb 2026, at 04:49, Ron Stewart <ron.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm struggling to find an image for the cover, in part because the link between the title and the story itself is pretty oblique. After looking through almost all of the linked possible sources from the "Art and Images" section of the SEMoS, I've come up with the three possibilities listed below in my order of preference.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/4005d36d-282f-4cd4-ae08-38fef1261dcbn%40googlegroups.com.

[Robin Whittleton]

Oh, just seen that you listed them in order of preference. Go with the portrait of the lady then, I’ll add it to the db and assign it to this project.

-Robin

On 24 Feb 2026, at 07:45, Robin Whittleton <ro...@reala.net> wrote:



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[Ron Stewart]

Thank you, Robin. I will go with that.

Ron