[First project] Don Rodriguez by Lord Dunsany

[Markus]

Hi all,

I've tried to post before but it does not seem to have gone through (unless it's awaiting mod approval?). Apologies if I double-posted.

I would like to try my hand at Don Rodriguez by Lord Dunsany. I installed the tool chain. I read the step-by-step guide. I still have to read the manual of style.

PG: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4282

Scan (IA): https://archive.org/details/donrodriguez0000lord

M

[Markus]

Hi,

I would like to try my hand at Don Rodriguez by Lord Dunsany. The toolchain is set up. I read the step-by-step guide. I still have to read the manual of style.

PG: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4282

Scan (IA): https://archive.org/details/donrodriguezchro00duns

M

[Alex Cabal]

Great, that one would be a good start.

Since there is a dedication and preface, you will have to include a half
title page. You can use `se add-file halftitlepage` to do that.
Otherwise, this should be pretty straightfoward.

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! :)

> --
> 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
> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
> standardebooks/65349cc8-a471-46b8-bff5-fe83548a2758n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/65349cc8-a471-46b8-
> bff5-fe83548a2758n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Weijia will manage this with Emma reviewing.

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, noted.

[Markus]

Hi,

I'm at step 9, reading through the current version and manually editing typography. I have a few questions. I would appreciate your guidance. In general, I would tend to privilege this IA scan (https://archive.org/details/donrodriguezchr00dunsgoog/mode/2up) over the PG transcription. The IA scan seems to be the original 1922 publication. I couldn't find which edition the PG version is based on.

1. Some scans/transcriptions call the preface "Chronology" and others "Preface".  The above IA scan uses "Preface." I would therefore go with that instead of "Chronology."

2. I think that "Chronicles of Shadow Valley" is a subtitle (most versions include it on the title page or halftitle page) but I am a little confused by some online sources' showing "Don Rodriguez" and "The Charwoman's Shadow" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charwoman%27s_Shadow) making up the "Chronicles of Shadow Valley" series. It seems to me that while the two novels might be related, "CoSV" is properly part of the title of the first novel and not the name of some overarching series. But I thought I'd check with you.

3. The IA scan does not use chapter ordinals. The PG transcription does. I'm leaning towards going with the IA scan.

Thanks,

M

[Weijia Cheng]

In cases like this where there are slight differences between the PG transcription and the IA scan, you should stick with what the PG transcription does unless we have strong reason to believe that the PG edition is worse than the scanned edition. I don't think anything you mentioned rises to that level. I agree with marking "Chronicles of Shadow Valley" as the subtitle.

[Markus]

I finished a first read. Here are the major updates and some questions.

1. There is a character called "Morāno." His name is written with a macron throughout the scan, so this isn't an occasional typo or misprint. AFAICT Spanish does not "officially" use macrons, but I stuck with the scan's spelling.

2. I made an editorial commit. There are two cases of what I think are fairly obvious printer's typos. Just wanted to flag this here.

3. I decided on a solution for chapter titles but I would like your opinion on a possible alternative. Details below.

4. I am wondering how to treat the first "chapter" (chapter-1.xhtml). To me, it feels more like a prologue-as-frame-narrative as mentioned in 3.2.1. Because PG treats it like a chapter and gives it the ordinal "I" (One), this creates a discrepancy in the following chapters whose titles follow the template: II - The First Chronicle; III - The Second Chronicle; ...

Chapter Titles: the PG transcription uses ordinals, titles, and subtitles. The IA scan does not contain ordinals. Following the manual of style, I use an hgroup element, with the ordinal being an h2 element and the title and subtitle being p elements. But since all chapter titles (except for the first, see point 4 above) follow the template "The First/Second/... Chronicle," I was wondering if I should use instead a unique identifier as mentioned in 8.1.4. Regarding the subtitles, they are all single descriptive declarative sentence. If they weren't so short, I would argue for considering them bridgeheads. Let me know what you think.

Cheers,

M 

[Weijia Cheng]

1. Ok, that's fine.

2. If you're referring to commit 941c9791ab1ca42e7c7b4aa0fc75359037298594, the changes look fine.

3 and 4. I am not exactly sure I understand what you are talking about. There should be no need for roman ordinals in the titles. Each chapter should have an hgroup with "The Nth Chronicle" and a title with the second line. E.g.

<hgroup>
<h2>The <span epub:type="ordinal">First</span> <span epub:type="label">Chronicle</span></h2>
<p epub:type="title">How He Met and Said Farewell to Mine Host of the Dragon and Knight</p>
</hgroup>

The "Preface" should be semanticated as a prologue, as you surmised, but it should not be called chaper-1.xhtml but prologue.xhtml. The current division of your files is an artifact of how you original file with <!--se:split--> and should be revised. se split-file simply looks for all of the <!--se:split--> comments and puts the first chunk in a file called chapter-1.xhtml and then proceeds from there. Ideally, you would have split off the prologue before running se split-file in order to make the chapter files line up with the actual chapters. At this point you will have to renamed chapter-1.xhtml to prologue.xhtml and then rename the subsequent chapter files accordingly.