The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights

[Michael Young]

I’m considering starting a version of The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Knowles and Malory.

There’s a good Gutenberg transcription at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12753 but I’m having trouble finding an exact match for it among the scans on Archive.org – some are very close, but the exact opening matter and year are off.

Is there a way to find out exactly where the Gutenberg transcription was sourced from?  And if not, is using an inexact match for proofreading a good idea?

Thanks for all the great information on the Standard Ebooks site!  This would be my first project, and I’m looking forward to giving it a try.

[Alex Cabal]

Great, that one would be a good start.

It looks like PG transcribed the 8th edition. With so many editions I'm
not surprised that others may vary.

Usually we want the latest possible edition. The edition number is
usually listed somewhere in the front matter of page scans. If the 8th
is the latest you can find, but there are no scans, that's fine, you can
proceed anyway with the latest scans and then just check them for typos.

You should cut all of the illustrations, and therefore also the
illustrator's note.

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

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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[Vince Rice]

We already have Malory; the PG note says it’s just an abridgment and a reordering, with a few extra stories. Do we want that duplication?

> On Jul 31, 2024, at 11:58 AM, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:
>
> Great, that one would be a good start.

[Alex Cabal]

Ah, is it literally the same text but just abridged? Or is it a
retelling in different words?

[Michael Young]

There's definitely some overlap, so I'd be interested to hear whether you all consider it an appropriate choice.  However, it's not literally an abridgement.

I've read the first few chapters of both to see how close they are.  The Knowles work contains several entire characters and major events that don't appear in Mallory, being retold from Geoffrey of Monmouth instead.  The parts that are from Mallory have a lot of common phrases, but are majorly reworked with a lot of summarising and retelling.  The result seems to be something much more accessible and coherent, which is what made me think it'd be a valuable project.

The preface has this to say: "It is little else than an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory’s version of them as printed by Caxton—with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth and other sources—and an endeavour to arrange the many tales into a more or less consecutive story".

What does everyone think?

[Alex Cabal]

OK, well, if the preface itself says it's little else than abridgement
then no, I would say we don't want it. We would however be interested in
original retellings of those stories, which is what I thought this was.

> >> 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>

> >>
> >> 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 7/31/24 11:14 AM, Michael Young wrote:
> >>> I’m considering starting a version of The Legends of King
> Arthur and His Knights by Knowles and Malory.
> >>> There’s a good Gutenberg transcription at
> https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12753
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12753> but I’m having trouble
> finding an exact match for it among the scans on Archive.org – some
> are very close, but the exact opening matter and year are off.
> >>> Is there a way to find out exactly where the Gutenberg
> transcription was sourced from? And if not, is using an inexact
> match for proofreading a good idea?
> >>> Thanks for all the great information on the Standard Ebooks
> site! This would be my first project, and I’m looking forward to
> giving it a try.
> >
>

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[Michael Young]

In that case I'll shelve this idea for now.  Maybe I'll drop back in for a different title some day!

[Michael Young]

I’m considering starting a version of Fish Preferred by P.G. Wodehouse, which was added on Gutenberg last year: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75435

Is this the kind of thing you're looking for? I’ve produced a couple of books using the Standard Ebooks toolset already (for personal use) but would like to make my first real project.