[First Project] The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

[Saggi Mizrahi]

I would like to try and work on this.

Transcription in Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/501

Please let me know whether I can proceed.

[Alex Cabal]

Great, that one would be a good start.

Cut the introduction and all illustrations. Since there is a dedication
you will have to include a half title page. Use just roman numerals for
the chapter ordinals.

Make sure to read the Standard Ebooks Manual of Style before starting,
as you won't know what to fix if you haven't read the standards. In
particular, please closely review the semantics, high level patterns,
and typography sections:

https://standardebooks.org/manual

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/4-semantics

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/7-high-level-structural-patterns

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/8-typography

The step by step guide will take you from start to finish:

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producing-an-ebook-step-by-step

This page on common issues in older books may be useful:

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/common-issues-when-working-on-public-domain-ebooks

Please email often if you have any questions at all. Our standards are
well-established so there is probably already a standard for formatting
whatever problem you've encountered.

When you're ready, email back with a link to your Github repository so
that I can mark you as having started.

Have fun! :)

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[Saggi Mizrahi]

I think this didn't come through because I used the wrong email. 

I have what I think is a decent first draft.

I'm obviously missing a cover and metadata information but I would like to see if I'm doing it at least somewhat correctly.

https://github.com/ficoos/hugh-lofting_the-story-of-doctor-dolittle

On Tue, 22 Jul 2025, 8:29 Saggi Mizrahi, <sa...@mizrahi.cc> wrote:

Hi, sending again in case it got lost in the shuffle.

I just want to make sure what I have now is OK before I start going through it deeper proof reading and adding more semantic information where needed. It'll be easier to transform or rollback the structural stuff now rather than later.

On Sun, 20 Jul 2025, 21:21 Saggi Mizrahi, <sa...@mizrahi.cc> wrote:

Hi, I have what I think is a decent first draft.

I'm obviously missing a cover and metadata information but I would like to see if I'm doing it at least somewhat correctly.

https://github.com/ficoos/hugh-lofting_the-story-of-doctor-dolittle

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[Alex Cabal]

OK, Weijia will manage this with Robin reviewing.

Weijia, what do you think of the progress?

On 7/24/25 2:32 AM, Saggi Mizrahi wrote:
> I think this didn't come through because I used the wrong email.
>
> I have what I think is a decent first draft.
> I'm obviously missing a cover and metadata information but I would like
> to see if I'm doing it at least somewhat correctly.
>
> https://github.com/ficoos/hugh-lofting_the-story-of-doctor-dolittle
> <https://github.com/ficoos/hugh-lofting_the-story-of-doctor-dolittle>
>
> On Tue, 22 Jul 2025, 8:29 Saggi Mizrahi, <sa...@mizrahi.cc
> <mailto:sa...@mizrahi.cc>> wrote:
>
> Hi, sending again in case it got lost in the shuffle.
>
> I just want to make sure what I have now is OK before I start going
> through it deeper proof reading and adding more semantic information
> where needed. It'll be easier to transform or rollback the
> structural stuff now rather than later.
>
> On Sun, 20 Jul 2025, 21:21 Saggi Mizrahi, <sa...@mizrahi.cc
> <mailto:sa...@mizrahi.cc>> wrote:
>
> Hi, I have what I think is a decent first draft.
> I'm obviously missing a cover and metadata information but I
> would like to see if I'm doing it at least somewhat correctly.
>
> https://github.com/ficoos/hugh-lofting_the-story-of-doctor-

> dolittle <https://github.com/ficoos/hugh-lofting_the-story-of-
> doctor-dolittle>

>
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 8:31 PM Alex Cabal
> <al...@standardebooks.org <mailto:al...@standardebooks.org>> wrote:
>
> Great, that one would be a good start.
>
> Cut the introduction and all illustrations. Since there is a
> dedication
> you will have to include a half title page. Use just roman
> numerals for
> the chapter ordinals.
>
> Make sure to read the Standard Ebooks Manual of Style before
> starting,
> as you won't know what to fix if you haven't read the
> standards. In
> particular, please closely review the semantics, high level
> patterns,
> and typography sections:
>
> https://standardebooks.org/manual <https://
> standardebooks.org/manual>
>

> https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/4-semantics
> <https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/4-semantics>
>
> https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/7-high-level-
> structural-patterns <https://standardebooks.org/manual/
> latest/7-high-level-structural-patterns>
>
> https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/8-typography

> <https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/8-typography>
>
> The step by step guide will take you from start to finish:
>
> https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producing-an-ebook-

> step-by-step <https://standardebooks.org/contribute/
> producing-an-ebook-step-by-step>

>
> This page on common issues in older books may be useful:
>
> https://standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/common-issues-

> when-working-on-public-domain-ebooks <https://
> standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/common-issues-when-
> working-on-public-domain-ebooks>

>
> Please email often if you have any questions at all.  Our
> standards are
> well-established so there is probably already a standard for
> formatting
> whatever problem you've encountered.
>
> When you're ready, email back with a link to your Github
> repository so
> that I can mark you as having started.
>
> Have fun! :)
>
>
> On 7/17/25 2:16 AM, Saggi Mizrahi wrote:
> > I would like to try and work on this.
> >
> > Transcription in Project Gutenberg: https://

> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/501 <https://www.gutenberg.org/
> ebooks/501>

> >
> > Please let me know whether I can proceed.
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to
> 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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> > To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/

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> > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
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[Weijia Cheng]

I took a quick look. Things look OK so far, so please keep going!

[Saggi Mizrahi]

Hi, I'm still on my first read through. I didn't have a lot of time to work on this.

I do think I did all the stuff I could've done automatically.

I also updated the Colophon (apart from the cover metadata obviously).

As for the cover, I think that either this (my first choice) this . They are from the SE database and the parrot represents Polynesia who teaches Dr. Doolittle the animal language.

I also have a style question. The novel uses dashes a lot. I couldn't really find out if that is in line with the expected style or should that be changed.

For example:

Once upon a time, many years ago—when our grandfathers were little children—there was a doctor

Another example: 

But the Cat's-meatman wasn't very rich and he only got sick once a year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine 

Should these be "modernized" to use parentheses or commas?

Thanks

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[Weijia Cheng]

I assigned your first choice to this book in the database.

I was looking at your repo and noticed this commit. It looks like you reverted typogrify wholesale, which is definitely not something we should be doing. What was your thought process behind making this change?

We don't touch the way em dashes are used. Even though we do modernize spelling and hyphenation, we keep a light editorial touch and don't change things like sentence structure.

[Saggi Mizrahi]

Removing all the nbsp was a misunderstanding on my part, I've reverted it.

I've also added the cover and set up the metadata.

I think I'm pretty close to being done.

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