[Project] Back to Methuselah, by George Bernard Shaw

[Asher Smith]

My next project will be Back to Methuselah, continuing with the George Bernard Shaw. This one is rather longer, and seems like it will be the most complicated structurally since Man and Superman, or perhaps Fanny's First Play: it's a 30k word long preface followed by a sequence of five plays. I imagine it will take me some time to produce.

For the preface, which has a series of subdivisions, I propose to have a series of <h3> subdivisions but a single preface.xhtml file, rather than several dozen preface files. It will of course have a halftitlepage.xhtml after that with the title of the whole volume. The other frontmatter will be a dramatis-personae, which I think will be for all five plays separated by headings within (like that in Fanny's First Play), rather than five separate dramatis personae files.

The plays are a mix of one-, two-, and three-act plays. I'm struggling to parse how SEMoS 7.2 would apply here, so would appreciate some guidance on this before I try to commit anything to text.

• For all of them, I propose to have part-N.xhtml pages with <h2> elements. The page scans show that the titles of the parts include a subtitle in the table of contents that is not then repeated on the part title page; I'm proposing to include the part number, the title, and the subtitle(s) all on the part title pages. I think that this means that, for example, "Part III" would be <h2>, "The Thing Happens" would be <p> styled with nth-child to be the same size as the <h2> and tagged epub:type="title", and then "A.D. 2170" would be a <p> tagged epub:type="subtitle" and styled smaller, all of which would be within an <hgroup> - is that correct? Is there a semantically correct way to make more than just "Part N" appear in the ToC?
• For the multi-act plays, the filenames will be the standard act-1-1.xhtml; they will contain standard <h3> elements with the act number, but will not repeat the <h2> name of the play (which the page scans do).
• For the one-act plays, the filenames will follow SE convention and be the name of the play. Usually, they would contain an <h3> element which is the name of the play, but that would have the unfortunate consequence of the ToC having a second line with the same name on it. As per SEMoS 7.2.10.8, I would be tempted to give them a title that would not appear in the ToC via a <p> in the <header> - is this allowed?

Apart from those issues, there are the usual GBS foibles vis-à-vis contractions, some pretty standard together dialogue formatting, and the odd verse blockquote. I can use these IA scans, and this PG transcription.

[Emma Sweeney]

1. I think <h3> subdivisions inside the preface.xhtml is fine. That is a really long preface!

2. That title structure is fine. If you structure the part titles like in SEMoS 7.2.10.6 plus a subtitle, the label, ordinal, and title will appear in the ToC.

3. That's correct; don't repeat the part names.

3. If there is a part with no act title, you can have the dialogue inside the part file. There's no need for an repeated header.

it seems like the file names and order would be:

part-1.xhtml

act-1-1.xhtml

act-1-2.xhtml

act-1-3.xhtml

part-2.xhtml

part-3.xhtml

part-4.xhtml

act-4-1.xhtml

act-4-2.xhtml

act-4-3.xhtml

part-5.xhtml

Emma

[Asher Smith]

OK, that makes sense to me, thanks! I presume that I just target those particular header with a "break-after: page” to get the same effect?

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[Emma Sweeney]

You could do that.

Emma

[Alex Cabal]

Can you send a link to your repo?

On 1/3/26 7:44 PM, Asher Smith wrote:
> My next project will be /Back to Methuselah/, continuing with the George

> Bernard Shaw. This one is rather longer, and seems like it will be the

> most complicated structurally since /Man and Superman/, or perhaps /
> Fanny's First Play/: it's a 30k word long preface followed by a sequence

> of five plays. I imagine it will take me some time to produce.
>
> For the preface, which has a series of subdivisions, I propose to have a
> series of <h3> subdivisions but a single preface.xhtml file, rather than
> several dozen preface files. It will of course have a
> halftitlepage.xhtml after that with the title of the whole volume. The
> other frontmatter will be a dramatis-personae, which I think will be for

> all five plays separated by headings within (like that in /Fanny's First
> Play/), rather than five separate dramatis personae files.

>
> The plays are a mix of one-, two-, and three-act plays. I'm struggling
> to parse how SEMoS 7.2 would apply here, so would appreciate some
> guidance on this before I try to commit anything to text.
>

> * For all of them, I propose to have part-N.xhtml pages with <h2>

> elements. The page scans show that the titles of the parts include a
> subtitle in the table of contents that is not then repeated on the
> part title page; I'm proposing to include the part number, the
> title, and the subtitle(s) all on the part title pages. I think that
> this means that, for example, "Part III" would be <h2>, "The Thing
> Happens" would be <p> styled with nth-child to be the same size as
> the <h2> and tagged epub:type="title", and then "A.D. 2170" would be
> a <p> tagged epub:type="subtitle" and styled smaller, all of which
> would be within an <hgroup> - is that correct? Is there a
> semantically correct way to make more than just "Part N" appear in
> the ToC?

> * For the multi-act plays, the filenames will be the standard

> act-1-1.xhtml; they will contain standard <h3> elements with the act
> number, but will not repeat the <h2> name of the play (which the
> page scans do).

> * For the one-act plays, the filenames will follow SE convention and

> be the name of the play. Usually, they would contain an <h3> element
> which is the name of the play, but that would have the unfortunate
> consequence of the ToC having a second line with the same name on

> it. As per SEMoS 7.2.10.8 <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/
> single-page#7.2.10.8>, I would be tempted to give them a title that

> would not appear in the ToC via a <p> in the <header> - is this allowed?
>
> Apart from those issues, there are the usual GBS foibles vis-à-vis
> contractions, some pretty standard together dialogue formatting, and the

> odd verse blockquote. I can use these IA scans <https://archive.org/
> details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208046/>, and this PG transcription <https://
> gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13084/pg13084-images.html>.
>
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[Asher Smith]

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[Alex Cabal]

OK, Vince will manage with David reviewing.

On 1/6/26 5:11 AM, Asher Smith wrote:
> george-bernard-shaw_back-to-methuselah.png
> ACBSmith/george-bernard-shaw_back-to-methuselah <https://github.com/
> ACBSmith/george-bernard-shaw_back-to-methuselah>
> github.com <https://github.com/ACBSmith/george-bernard-shaw_back-to-
> methuselah>
>
> <https://github.com/ACBSmith/george-bernard-shaw_back-to-methuselah>

>>> manual/1.8.5/ <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/>

>>>    single-page#7.2.10.8>, I would be tempted to give them a title that
>>>    would not appear in the ToC via a <p> in the <header> - is this
>>> allowed?
>>> Apart from those issues, there are the usual GBS foibles vis-à-vis
>>> contractions, some pretty standard together dialogue formatting, and
>>> the odd verse blockquote. I can use these IA scans <https://

>>> archive.org/ details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208046/ <https://archive.org/
>>> %20details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208046/>>, and this PG transcription
>>> <https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13084/pg13084-images.html <http://

>>> gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13084/pg13084-images.html>>.
>>> --
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>>> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,

>>> send an email tostandardeboo...@googlegroups.com
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>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/>standardebooks/
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>>> <http://40googlegroups.com/><https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
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>>> %20ab21c12e-7de1-4563-978a-1dd8a2d97ed4n%40googlegroups.com?
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>
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[Asher Smith]

Quick question about SEMoS 8.10.5 - does this also apply to orders or titles? If someone has an OBE or the like (in the case of this book, a made-up title written as "O.M."), is it treated the same way as this? Or do I just give it a standard initialism semantic?

[David Reimer]

While we wait for Vince, I expect you've already noticed that the corpus is divided on the issue. Perhaps that's what prompts the question! There are others that are split over `name-title` v. `initialism`, too.

And could the "OM" be Order of Merit?

[Asher Smith]

I was thinking it might be an Order of Merit, but the play is set in the year 3000 so I wasn't sure. If that is the case, then I think it should probably be styled without the periods and in small caps.

It might be a question for Alex, then, and we can put the answer into SEMoS to forestall further questions. This would apply to membership of orders or fellowship of societies (e.g. FRS).

[Asher Smith]

Unrelatedly, could I please claim this artwork from the database? The first play takes place in the Garden of Eden and the last in another natural setting; while it may come to pass that I have a better idea, I think it not unlikely that I'll stay with this.

[Vince]

I would assume it’s an Order of Merit, and in the absence of an Alex override, I would also assume name-title is the best fit. I don’t see any reason for it to be small caps—it’s not an acronym.

[Vince]

I don’t see any reason why not, but would you please do a mockup so we can see the crop?

[Asher Smith]

I've definitely seen honorifics given the small caps treatment; Wikipedia is one place where post-nominals are given small caps. However, I see that CMOS says they're to be in all caps, so I'm assuming that's the desired outcome.

For a crop, I'm thinking like this:

[Vince]

Perfect, thanks, looks good! I’ve assigned it.

Right, we don’t care what other people are doing, we care what SEMoS says do. :)

On Feb 21, 2026, at 3:25 PM, Asher Smith <forlackofa...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've definitely seen honorifics given the small caps treatment; Wikipedia is one place where post-nominals are given small caps. However, I see that CMOS says they're to be in all caps, so I'm assuming that's the desired outcome.

For a crop, I'm thinking like this: