[Next Project] The Mystery of Edwin Drood, by Charles Dickens

[Chris Spurgeon]

I was surprised to see that The Mystery of Edwin Drood hasn't been done yet. It would be an honor to do any Dickens work, even an incomplete one.

Project Gutenberg has the text at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/564/pg564-images.html , and the Internet Archive has page scans at https://archive.org/details/mysteryofedwindr00dickrich

OK to take this on?

Chris Spurgeon

[Alex Cabal]

Sure. This one is part of several collections so make sure to include
them in the metadata:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood

Send a link to your repo once you start!

On 6/10/26 5:23 PM, Chris Spurgeon wrote:
> I was surprised to see that /The Mystery of Edwin Drood /hasn't been

> done yet. It would be an honor to do any Dickens work, even an
> incomplete one.
>
> Project Gutenberg has the text at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/
> epub/564/pg564-images.html , and the Internet Archive has page scans
> at https://archive.org/details/mysteryofedwindr00dickrich
>
> OK to take this on?
>
> Chris Spurgeon
>
>
>

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[Chris Spurgeon]

Sure thing, here it is!

Chris

https://github.com/chrisspurgeon/charles-dickens_the-mystery-of-edwin-drood

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Weijia will manage with Lukas reviewing.

On 6/11/26 7:52 PM, Chris Spurgeon wrote:
> Sure thing, here it is!
>
> Chris
>
> https://github.com/chrisspurgeon/charles-dickens_the-mystery-of-edwin-drood
>
> On Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 1:01:25 PM UTC-7 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Sure. This one is part of several collections so make sure to include
> them in the metadata:
> https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/the-mystery-of-

> edwin-drood <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/the-
> mystery-of-edwin-drood>

>
> Send a link to your repo once you start!
>
> On 6/10/26 5:23 PM, Chris Spurgeon wrote:
> > I was surprised to see that /The Mystery of Edwin Drood /hasn't been
> > done yet. It would be an honor to do any Dickens work, even an
> > incomplete one.
> >
> > Project Gutenberg has the text at https://www.gutenberg.org/

> cache/ <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/>

> > epub/564/pg564-images.html , and the Internet Archive has page scans
> > at https://archive.org/details/mysteryofedwindr00dickrich
> <https://archive.org/details/mysteryofedwindr00dickrich>
> >
> > OK to take this on?
> >
> > Chris Spurgeon
> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> > Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
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> > an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com
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[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, noted.

[Chris Spurgeon]

Just a heads up, the Internet Archive edition of the printed book I've been using for reference seems to have gone offline. When I attempt to go to https://archive.org/details/mysteryofedwindr00dickrich I now get this error message...

The item you have requested had an error:
unable to load metadata from item location
which prevents us from displaying this page.

Items may be taken down for various reasons, including by decision of the uploader or due to a violation of our Terms of Use.

I don't know if this is a temporary thing or not. If access continues to be blocked, I'll switch over to this copy on Google Books (which appears to be identical).

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_mystery_of_Edwin_Drood_1871/GWgKS3i75kIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Edwin+Drood&pg=PP11&printsec=frontcover

Onward!

Chris

[Vince Rice]

It showed up just now for me.

On Jun 14, 2026, at 6:18 PM, Chris Spurgeon <spurge...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just a heads up, the Internet Archive edition of the printed book I've been using for reference seems to have gone offline. When I attempt to go to https://archive.org/details/mysteryofedwindr00dickrich I now get this error message...

[Chris Spurgeon]

Oh, OK. For me it comes and goes.

Meanwhile, a quick question about this em dash at the end of chapter 1...

Does that strike you all as "an interruption in dialog", and therefore a single em dash is correct, or "completely obscured words", meaning use a three em dash, as they did here in the original printing?

[Kevin Palm]

If the archive is sporadic, it's probably a good idea to just download the scans so you'll have a local copy!

[Weijia Cheng]

You can use a single em dash in that case.

[Chris Spurgeon (gmail)]

Thanks!

C

[Chris Spurgeon]

Been plugging away on Edwin Drood. Quick question on dates that are written out, such as...

planted in seventeen-forty-seven.

Surround those in <time> tags with just the year, like this...

planted in <time datetime="1747">seventeen-forty-seven</time>.

?

[Chris Spurgeon]

A separate question. In the book Dickens reproduces a character's proposed tombstone. Here's the image from the book...

I think I've done a good job reproducing it, but it strikes me that it would be a shame if that text got split between two screens in the user's eBook. I was thinking it could be a good idea to surround it with break-before:page and break-after:page CSS rules. What do you think? Good idea, or a fool's errand to even try?

[Weijia Cheng]

In general you don't need to bother with inserting <time> semantics unless other circumstances all for it.

I don't think you should try to force the positioning of the page breaks. This is something that should be left up to the renderer.

[Chris Spurgeon]

Ok, and ok. Thanks!

Chris

On Jul 2, 2026, at 8:59 PM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Chris Spurgeon]

Here's my suggestion for the cover...

This is Kirchhofpforte by Caspar David Friedrich, an image from the SE art database. It's page is at https://standardebooks.org/artworks/caspar-david-friedrich/kirchhofpforte .

A lot of the book takes place at or near a church, and I think this image has a little bit of creepy foreboding vibe to it that matches the story.

[Weijia Cheng]

Looks good, I assigned the painting.

[Chris Spurgeon]

Thanks!

Another quick question... Dickens has several places where he mentions money with "and" in the phrase, like this...

Five-and-forty shillings

Should I keep the dashes (but replace regular hyphens with non-breaking hyphens) or replace the hyphens with spaces, like this...

Five and forty shillings

?

[Weijia Cheng]

You should keep the hyphens.

[Chris Spurgeon (gmail)]

Got it.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6b802076-5e97-4d8c-ad9f-937bd2462b87n%40googlegroups.com.

[Chris Spurgeon]

The physical book I've been using from archive.org has this paragraph at the beginning, explaining (in its Victorian way) that this is an incomplete book, terminated by the author's death. (It's not part of the PG transcription). I'd really like to include it. I have a couple of questions....

1) OK to include it?

2) If so, include it as a forward or a preface? It's obviously not written by Charles Dickens, so that would make it a forward, right? But it looks like no other SE books have forwards (assuming I can trust my GitHub search), only prefaces. Also, no author for that paragraph is indicated anywhere in the physical book. Given all that, just call it a preface and include it that way?

[Weijia Cheng]

You can include that as a foreword. See 3.1.7.

[Chris Spurgeon]

Thanks!

On Jul 4, 2026, at 8:16 PM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

You can include that as a foreword. See 3.1.7.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/55d7b473-7962-4e73-91dd-f177137e005cn%40googlegroups.com.

[Vince]

On Jul 4, 2026, at 8:12 PM, Chris Spurgeon <spurge...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks!

On Saturday, July 4, 2026 at 8:05:41 PM UTC-4 spurge...@gmail.com wrote:

…

2) If so, include it as a forward or a preface? It's obviously not written by Charles Dickens, so that would make it a forward, right? But it looks like no other SE books have forwards (assuming I can trust my GitHub search), only prefaces. Also, no author for that paragraph is indicated anywhere in the physical book. Given all that, just call it a preface and include it that way?

We have over 75 titles with a foreword. Note the spelling, which might be why you didn’t find any.

[Chris Spurgeon]

OK, I believe The Mystery of Edwin Drood is ready for inspection. The github repo is at https://github.com/chrisspurgeon/charles-dickens_the-mystery-of-edwin-drood .

A few notes...

1) No problem adding the anonymous foreword.

2) I used a <div> and straightforward CSS to style the bombastic tombstone text in chapter 4, as opposed to a <blockquote>, since none of the possible categories for blockquotes (hymn, verse, etc.) seemed to apply. I added an entry in the ignore file for it.

3) Same thing for the presentation of the initials carved over a doorway in chapter 11.

4) I also have a one line lint-ignore entry covering the unusual quotation segment on line 140 of chapter 10.

Let me know what I need to change/correct.

Thanks!

Chris

[Vince Rice]

The divs should be plain blockquotes. Not every blockquote has to have an epub type.

On Jul 5, 2026, at 6:37 PM, Chris Spurgeon <spurge...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, I believe The Mystery of Edwin Drood is ready for inspection. The github repo is at https://github.com/chrisspurgeon/charles-dickens_the-mystery-of-edwin-drood .

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[Chris Spurgeon]

Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. 😱😱😱

I have a perfect record of doing (at least) one bone headed mistake per book. 

Chris

We have over 75 titles with a foreword. Note the spelling, which might be why you didn’t find any.

--

[Chris Spurgeon]

OK, those <div>s have been changed to <blockquote>s, and the CSS and lint ignore files have been updated accordingly. Ready for inspection again.

Chris

[Lukas Bystricky]

Ok, I'll get to this in the next couple days. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/d19138c2-8958-43c4-aec6-9e816febf555n%40googlegroups.com.

[Lukas Bystricky]

Nice work Chris. I filed a few relatively minor issues and one rather large question. Let me know when you've taken care of those and I'll have another look. 

[Chris Spurgeon]

OK, all GitHub items addressed, and I've created the appendix. Back to you!

[Lukas Bystricky]

Ok Alex this is ready for you. Note that Chris started this project with the old toolset, so lint will complain about a few things. 

[Alex Cabal]

This ebook was produced by Chris Spurgeon. Thanks Chris!

Ebook URL:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood

GitHub URL:
https://github.com/standardebooks/charles-dickens_the-mystery-of-edwin-drood

[Alex Cabal]

OK, great work Chris, thanks! I've released it.

Note a few things:

- Metadata must appear in a particular order; you put the collection
metadata at the bottom, but that belongs higher.

- No-break hyphens are only used when words are stretched out for effect
and when an unlucky line hyphenation point would lose the stretched-out
effect. So phrases like "eight-and-twenty" and "man-of-war" don't
require no break hyphens.

- I cut the foreword because it we cover that in in the long description.

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[Chris Spurgeon]

Got it. Thanks!!!

Chris

> On Jul 12, 2026, at 9:36 PM, 'Alex Cabal' via Standard Ebooks <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> OK, great work Chris, thanks! I've released it.

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