[First Book] Manalive - G. K. Chesterton

[Max Tarver]

I would like to do Manalive by G. K. Chesterton.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1718

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manalive

https://archive.org/details/manalive01chesgoog/page/n9/mode/1up

[Alex Cabal]

OK, sure. That one should be pretty basic. It's divided into 2 parts,
see the manual for how to structure that. There is also some verse, also
see the manual.

Please send a link to your repo once you start. Thanks!

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[Max Tarver]

https://github.com/maxotar/g-k-chesterton_manalive

I've started working on this.

There are some pretty complicated embedded letters in the second half of the book.

Going to be a little tricky.

[Max Tarver]

I would like some help on how to approach these sections:

The letters are being read aloud by characters and sometimes interrupted by other characters.

They have some footer styling, and they start with opening quotation marks but do not end with them.

scan sample 1

'

scan sample 2

Notice that there is no closing double quote? Seems like a recurring issue.

Below is currently how it is rendering without any semantics added.

[Vince]

Having a letter split by interruptions is a common occurrence in the corpus. Simply style each piece of the letter as a letter, with the appropriate semantics for whatever parts of the letter are in that piece.

There’s no closing quote because the speaker is still talking. Multiple paragraphs from the same speaker never have closing quotes. Neither the paragraph immediately prior to the second letter (living off the Harrow Road—) or immediately following (He writes as follows—) have a closing quote either, for the same reason.

[Max Tarver]

How does this look so far?

I attempted to format several of the letters in this chapter.

https://github.com/maxotar/g-k-chesterton_manalive/blob/master/src/epub/text/chapter-2-1.xhtml

[Alex Cabal]

I seem to have overlooked assigning this book, so I just assigned it.
Emma will manage with Robin reviewing.

Emma what do you think of his repo?

On 10/19/25 1:23 AM, Max Tarver wrote:
> How does this look so far?
> I attempted to format several of the letters in this chapter.
>
> https://github.com/maxotar/g-k-chesterton_manalive/blob/master/src/epub/
> text/chapter-2-1.xhtml
>
> On Saturday, October 18, 2025 at 7:39:44 PM UTC-6 Vince wrote:
>
> Having a letter split by interruptions is a common occurrence in the
> corpus. Simply style each piece of the letter as a letter, with the
> appropriate semantics for whatever parts of the letter are in that
> piece.
>
> There’s no closing quote because the speaker is still talking.
> Multiple paragraphs from the same speaker never have closing quotes.
> Neither the paragraph immediately prior to the second letter (living
> off the Harrow Road—) or immediately following (He writes as follows
> —) have a closing quote either, for the same reason.
>
>
>> On Oct 18, 2025, at 3:21 PM, Max Tarver <max...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>

>> https://github.com/maxotar/g-k-chesterton_manalive <https://
>> github.com/maxotar/g-k-chesterton_manalive>

>>
>> I've started working on this.
>> There are some pretty complicated embedded letters in the second
>> half of the book.
>> Going to be a little tricky.
>>
>> On Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 9:27:40 PM UTC-6 Alex Cabal wrote:
>>
>> OK, sure. That one should be pretty basic. It's divided into 2
>> parts,
>> see the manual for how to structure that. There is also some
>> verse, also
>> see the manual.
>>
>> Please send a link to your repo once you start. Thanks!
>>
>> On 10/16/25 9:32 PM, Max Tarver wrote:
>> > I would like to do Manalive by G. K. Chesterton.
>> >
>> >https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1718 <https://

>> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1718>
>> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manalive <https://
>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manalive>
>> >https://archive.org/details/manalive01chesgoog/page/n9/
>> mode/1up <https://archive.org/details/manalive01chesgoog/page/
>> n9/mode/1up>

>
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[Emma Sweeney]

It looks pretty good. One small tweak: in the letter sent by Wilfred Emerson Eames and Innocent Smith, the footer needs to be structured like

<footer role="presentation">
<p>
<span epub:type="z3998:valediction">We are, yours faithfully,</span>
<br/>
<span epub:type="z3998:sender"><b epub:type="z3998:signature">Wilfred Emerson Eames,</b><br/>
Warden of Brakespeare College, Cambridge</span>
<br/>
<b epub:type="z3998:sender z3998:signature">Innocent Smith’</b>
</p>
</footer>

Emma

[Max Tarver]

Ok, thanks.

Now this next question is because PG and the scan differ in how the quote marks and block quoting work.

In all cases, the letters are read aloud by someone who did not write them, so I can understand why there is a double quote and then single quote also.

But the entire second half of the chapter is a long blockquote from one particularly long letter.

This long letter retells a story in which there is dialogue so there are three level of quotations.

I understand the logic, and the scans show it this way with three levels.

I just want to confirm that the blockquote itself does not imply a level of quotation on its own?

The PG transcription is missing the entire 3rd level of quotation so I want to confirm that I should mimic the scan before doing so.

Typical letter showing two layers of quotation.

PG showing the same letter with one layer of quotes only.

Scan showing 3 layers of quotes.

[Emma Sweeney]

Your page scans don't match the PG edition. You should be using these page scans.

Emma

[Max Tarver]

Ok, that makes a lot of sense.

I'm going to delete the last commit and do the letters again.

[Max Tarver]

I'm on the proofreading step now. I expect that will take a week or two.