[Next project] Romola, by George Eliot

[David]

The Sayers & Eustace project will soon be finished, so thoughts are turning to the next one.

I might regret this, but I think it's time for George Eliot's _Romola_:

PG: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/24020
IA: https://archive.org/details/worksofgeorgeeli0000geor_r2h8

Repo: https://github.com/dajare/george-eliot_romola

It's around 230K words. Unfortunately, the PG transcription inlined all the footnotes, so they will need to be restored. It also omitted the three-book structure (not "volumes"), and that also will need to be restored. There will be a lot of language semantics to add.

Otherwise, I hope it holds me! :) Hope this looks okay to be getting on with.

[Alex Cabal]

Sounds good! Emma will manage with Robin reviewing.

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[David]

Just looking for confirmation (or otherwise!), Emma, on a language issue.

There are a LOT of un-italicized Italian strings in this transcription. They're of different kinds:

(1) Sometimes the term has italics on first instance, followed by definition, then used repeated without, e.g.`becchetto` (but this one only 8x in the book). -> could be okay? cf. SEMoS 8.2.10.1? (i.e., Italics + semantics for first occurrence, but not for the rest.)

(2) Sometimes they are used without italics at all, e.g. `Frate` (friar) or `Frate Predicatore` (friar preacher). (Not in MW's "basic search results",, of course.), Or you get some random Italian thrown in in dialog (e.g “Silenzio!”; + following paragraph, “Donna!”).

(3) Sometimes you just get an unmarked string of Latin or Italian. Or like: `It is a ‘buona fortuna,’...` (but second occurrence of this phrase does have italics!). 

My assumption is that both (2) and (3) should always attract italics + semantics. Or, are there cases where these should be span + semantics, since not italicized in source?

Thanks for your help with this!

[David]

And another semantics question: there are six instances of full dates in the book, falling between 1492 and 1509. I have them marked up with (e.g.): 

    <time datetime="1494-11-17">17th of November 1494</time>

It occurs to me that these will be Julian. Do I adjust the `datetime` to Gregorian? Or just match the semantic number with the date in the text? (Hope that makes sense!)

(I think this came up in a production I did that Robin reviewed, but my memory is both hazy and fallible.)

[Robin Whittleton]

That should be converted to Gregorian, yep. (See Pepys, Lazarillo, etc). But I understand that not everyone is as geeky as me on this subject.

-Robin

On 6 Mar 2026, at 17:10, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Alex Cabal]

They *must* be, that is part of the HTML spec.

On 3/6/26 10:23 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> That should be converted to Gregorian, yep. (See Pepys, Lazarillo, etc).
> But I understand that not everyone is as geeky as me on this subject.
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 6 Mar 2026, at 17:10, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> And another semantics question: there are six instances of full dates
>> in the book, falling between 1492 and 1509. I have them marked up with
>> (e.g.):
>>     <time datetime="1494-11-17">17th of November 1494</time>
>>
>> It occurs to me that these will be Julian. Do I adjust the `datetime`
>> to Gregorian? Or just match the semantic number with the date in the
>> text? (Hope that makes sense!)
>>
>> (I think this came up in a production I did that Robin reviewed, but
>> my memory is both hazy and fallible.)
>>
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>> standardebooks/04693775-f200-4119-ac3e-
>> ab767840352bn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

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[David Reimer]

Glad I asked! And handy to find this "calculator":
https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/#juliancalendar

(In case anyone else is looking for such a thing.)

[Alex Cabal]

Emma, thoughts?

On 3/6/26 9:36 AM, David wrote:
> Just looking for confirmation (or otherwise!), Emma, on a language issue.
>
> There are a LOT of un-italicized Italian strings in this transcription.
> They're of different kinds:
>
> (1) Sometimes the term has italics on first instance, followed by

> definition, then used repeated without, e.g.`becchetto <https://
> archive.org/details/worksofgeorgeeli0000geor_r2h8/page/n9/mode/2up?
> q=becchetto>` (but this one only 8x in the book). -> could be okay? cf.
> SEMoS 8.2.10.1 <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.7/single-
> page#8.2.10.1>? (i.e., Italics + semantics for first occurrence, but not

> for the rest.)
>
> (2) Sometimes they are used without italics at all, e.g. `Frate` (friar)
> or `Frate Predicatore` (friar preacher). (Not in MW's "basic search
> results",, of course.), Or you get some random Italian thrown in in

> dialog (e.g “Silenzio!” <https://archive.org/details/
> worksofgeorgeeli0000geor_r2h8/page/n199/mode/2up?q=Silenzio>; +
> following paragraph, “Donna!”).
>
> (3) Sometimes you just get an unmarked string of Latin <https://
> archive.org/details/worksofgeorgeeli0000geor_r2h8/page/n90/mode/1up?
> q=dulcis> or Italian <https://archive.org/details/
> worksofgeorgeeli0000geor_r2h8/page/n113/mode/1up?q=tacendo>. Or like:
> `It is a ‘buona fortuna <http://It%20is%20a%20%E2%80%98buona%20fortuna,
> %E2%80%99>,’...` (but second occurrence of this phrase does have italics!).

>
> My assumption is that both (2) and (3) should always attract italics +
> semantics. Or, are there cases where these should be span + semantics,
> since not italicized in source?
>
> Thanks for your help with this!
>

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[Emma Sweeney]

1. That sounds fine.

2. Those should have italics and semantics.

3. Those should have italics and semantics.

It's pretty common (at least for me) to find that some foreign phrases in the page scans are not italicized when they should be.

Emma

[David]

I'm now into proof-reading (which I don't expect to go quickly!), but thinking about a cover and interested in getting feedback on a couple possibilities.

I'd very much like to use a Frederic Leighton painting, given his historical association with the novel. So far, there are two decent options, both in the Artworks DB already:

(1) Memories (1883). I think this is a decent evocation of Romola herself (she has "rippling gold" hair):

(2) This is a crop of Leighton's first famous painting, "Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna" (1855; cf. Wikipedia). There is plenty of festive processional in the novel, and this fits the general Florentine religious ethos well:

Any thoughts? I'm not sure which I'm inclining towards yet ... or whether there is yet some other better option.

[Emma Sweeney]

Personally, I'm leaning towards the second option, but they are both great options. Let me know which one you pick and I'll reserve it.

Emma

[David]

On reflection, I think you're right, Emma. I like the "Memories" painting as an evocation of Romola (and I think it's better than *any* of the paperback covers which show a Romola with jet black hair! looking at you, Penguin...). But the processional painting is much more distinctive, and is pretty much ideal for Florence in the late middle ages. Let's go with that, then.

[Emma Sweeney]

Great! I've updated the art DB.

Emma

[David]

I'm afraid this is ready for review, Robin. There are a few notes:

• berretta (7x) : MW has as "biretta" > modernize? (I have left for the moment)
• note 19: for cite non-semantics, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_song
• just to observe: there was only one change for se semanticate to make(!).
• c38/31 - I have left all-caps for Greek `ΜΕΣΣΗΝΙΚΑ. ΚΒ′. to match the scans. (Does CSS text-transform work on Greek?)
• c42 - used language semantics for "Anathema", as it is NOT used in the sense of MW.

Also, I tried to do a rebase to remove a rogue rsquo I left behind in an [Editorial] commit. I thought I'd cracked it, but as I kept working, I discovered it had left some detritus behind (i.e., I messed up somehow). This is dealt with in Commit 5ee0c39. I hope that's adequate ... or put another way, making it cleaner is beyond my meagre "rebase" skillset.

This one was a bit of a brute. Thanks for your help with it.

[Robin Whittleton]

I’m a bit unwell at the moment so need to focus my energy. I’ll try to look at this over the weekend.

-Robin

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[David]

Absolutely no rush!! It will keep. Take care of yourself!

On Thursday, 4 June 2026 at 17:09:11 UTC+1 robin wrote:

I’m a bit unwell at the moment so need to focus my energy. I’ll try to look at this over the weekend.

-Robin

On 4 Jun 2026, at 17:54, David wrote:

I'm afraid this is ready for review, Robin. There are a few notes:...

[David]

P.s. I meant to mention, Robin, that I've completed this with toolset 3.0.3, as per Alex's guidance in the 3.0.4 update post. I'm fairly confident when you run lint it will squawk — it's silent for me.

On Thursday, 4 June 2026 at 17:09:11 UTC+1 robin wrote:

[Robin Whittleton]

While I go through the rest of this, a couple of points that would be good to get fixed in advance.

On the rebase detritus commit, that effectively just reverts the commit 5c81a3a9d824cbee202dfdcd378f4bf447497472. I’d just run `git rebase -i d19172dd99a27df69035bd9dd31b70ca7edf47b4` then mark 5c81a3a9d824cbee202dfdcd378f4bf447497472 and 5ee0c39ebc4e07079a74f3630b05227befbe2c5e to be dropped. Does that make sense?

Then on  “Add halftitlepage” commit didn’t add a halftitlepage. Could you edit the commit to include it?

Once you’ve done that and force pushed I should have completed the rest of the review.

-Robin

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[David]

Thanks for that, Robin! Those changes are now (force) pushed. Obviously my brain was somewhat addled getting this done! :/

[Robin Whittleton]

Great, review issues posted at https://github.com/dajare/george-eliot_romola/issues/1

On 7 Jun 2026, at 16:14, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for that, Robin! Those changes are now (force) pushed. Obviously my brain was somewhat addled getting this done! :/

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[Robin Whittleton]

OK Alex, ready for you.

-Robin

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[Alex Cabal]

This ebook was produced by David Reimer. Thanks David!

Ebook URL: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-eliot/romola

GitHub URL: https://github.com/standardebooks/george-eliot_romola

[Alex Cabal]

Great work David, I've released it. Thanks!

On 6/9/26 2:00 PM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> OK Alex, ready for you.
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 7 Jun 2026, at 16:32, Robin Whittleton <ro...@reala.net> wrote:
>>
>> Great, review issues posted at https://github.com/dajare/george-

>> eliot_romola/issues/1 <https://github.com/dajare/george-eliot_romola/
>> issues/1>

>>
>>> On 7 Jun 2026, at 16:14, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for that, Robin! Those changes are now (force) pushed.
>>> Obviously my brain was somewhat addled getting this done! :/
>>>
>>> On Sunday, 7 June 2026 at 12:36:06 UTC+1 robin wrote:
>>>
>>> While I go through the rest of this, a couple of points that
>>> would be good to get fixed in advance.
>>>
>>> On the rebase detritus commit, that effectively just reverts the
>>> commit 5c81a3a9d824cbee202dfdcd378f4bf447497472. I’d just run
>>> `git rebase -i d19172dd99a27df69035bd9dd31b70ca7edf47b4` then
>>> mark 5c81a3a9d824cbee202dfdcd378f4bf447497472 and
>>> 5ee0c39ebc4e07079a74f3630b05227befbe2c5e to be dropped. Does that
>>> make sense?
>>>
>>> Then on  “Add halftitlepage” commit didn’t add a halftitlepage.
>>> Could you edit the commit to include it?
>>>
>>> Once you’ve done that and force pushed I should have completed
>>> the rest of the review.
>>>
>>> -Robin
>>>
>>>
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