[First Project] Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson

[Richard Chompff]

Hi, I just found this project and I'd love to help! 

I found this book on the wanted books list and thought it would be good for my initial foray

[Alex Cabal]

Great, that one would be a good start.

This project has been attempted multiple times but nobody has succeeded.
Please search the mailing list for previous attempts to see if there are
any special notes for this book.

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. Please follow
it exactly:

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 assign you a manager and reviewer.

Have fun! :)

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[Richard Chompff]

I feel like I replied wrong..

I have now uploaded the initial draft to github:

https://github.com/KettleandClock/henry-williamson_tarka-the-otter

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[Alex Cabal]

OK great, Emma will manage with David reviewing.

On 8/30/26 10:08 PM, Richard Chompff wrote:
> I feel like I replied wrong..
>
> I have now uploaded the initial draft to github:
>
> https://github.com/KettleandClock/henry-williamson_tarka-the-otter
> <https://github.com/KettleandClock/henry-williamson_tarka-the-otter>
>
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 1:47 PM 'Alex Cabal' via Standard Ebooks
> <standar...@googlegroups.com

> <mailto:standar...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
>
> Great, that one would be a good start.
>
> This project has been attempted multiple times but nobody has
> succeeded.
> Please search the mailing list for previous attempts to see if there
> are
> any special notes for this book.
>
> 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. Please
> follow
> it exactly:
>
> 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 assign you a manager and reviewer.
>
> Have fun! :)
>
>
> On 8/25/26 10:40 PM, Richard Chompff wrote:
> > Hi, I just found this project and I'd love to help!
> >
> > I found this book on the wanted books list and thought it would
> be good
> > for my initial foray
> >
> > --
> > 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:standardebooks%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:standardebooks%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>>.

> > To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/>
> > standardebooks/5be386c7-ea20-4128-
> bdd1-5f2f90cd3115n%40googlegroups.com <http://40googlegroups.com>
> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/5be386c7-
> ea20-4128- <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
> standardebooks/5be386c7-ea20-4128->
> > bdd1-5f2f90cd3115n%40googlegroups.com?
> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <http://40googlegroups.com?

> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
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> <mailto:standardebooks%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>.

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/

> standardebooks/8dff987e-3765-4092-966c-006792ddc944%40standardebooks.org <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8dff987e-3765-4092-966c-006792ddc944%40standardebooks.org>.

>
> --
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> standardebooks/CAKGSNjhE4w3Jk1bLD%3DXwx1-
> h7%2BFZXNCz2g%2Bc6urPqYnt6%2BE9Hw%40mail.gmail.com <https://
> groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/CAKGSNjhE4w3Jk1bLD%3DXwx1-
> h7%2BFZXNCz2g%2Bc6urPqYnt6%2BE9Hw%40mail.gmail.com?
> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David]

And just a quick word as I subscribe to this thread in anticipation of the review. 

It's worth following the "Producing" guide *very* closely, especially in a first production, and trust SE's "tools". (I still do, after having done quite a few!) For example, your "Manual Typography Pass" commit doesn't deal with typography, but mostly reverts changes that `se clean` had made. That will likely need at least its commit message amended in a rebase... 

(You'll also need to convert the "image" dropcaps into plain text, but a bit of judicious regex should handle that.)

You haven't actually "declared" what you're using as your "scan" copy. I see in an earlier thread, Hendrik found the edition that the PG transcription is based on, so it's as well to use that one (IMO):
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001188638

I hope this helps!

David / Fife, UK

[Richard Chompff]

Ah, yes, I was going to double check before I replaced all of the drop caps, and also can I just confirm that according to the style guide I need to replace all of the chapter headings with roman numerals?

I had found a scan on the Internet Archive but I will swap it out for this one. Thanks!

[Emma Sweeney]

Yes, the chapter headings should be replaced with roman numerals. This should be done when you reach Step 14.

Emma

[Richard Chompff]

Ok. I'm currently manually reviewing the changes made by modernize spelling, but once I've gone through it all, I'll go back and fix the chapters and drop caps as a separate commit

[Richard Chompff]

ok, I have pushed all of my updates to github now, but I have hit an odd problem.

After running the build-titles as far as I can see the only difference is it changed the automatically generated titles from the initial draft for the two documents that begin parts, (chapter 1 and 11) and now when I try to run build-toc it is telling me there is no title in chapter-1.xhtml

[Richard Chompff]

I thought I had found the problem and have fixed the filenames and split the part sections into their own files, re-built the manifest and spine, and it's still throwing the same error, though now it's "couldn't find title in: part-1.xhtml"

[Emma Sweeney]

• The titles aren't formatted correctly. `<h3 epub:type="z3998: ordinal z3998: roman">` should not have spaces after `z3998:`, and `<h2 class="larger">The First Year</h2>` should be formatted like in SEMoS 7.2.9.4.
• You are missing a half title page.
• The introduction is missing a title, and the file needs to be marked as `frontmatter`.

Emma