How crazy would I be to tackle Boswell's Life of Johnson?

[David Grigg]

I'm thinking this might be a very long term project like Clarissa was, certainly take me most of a year.

I've already located all the PG links and found page scans of all 6 volumes of the George Birbeck Hill edition.

Do we want the Tour of the Hebrides and Diary of a Journey into North Wales as part of this, or should they be separate productions?

What do you think? Any hints, suggestions?

[Alex Cabal]

I was thinking of doing it too at some point but as you mention it's
just so long. If you want to start it, go for it! I've heard nothing but
good things.

We do want to make sure we have the unabridged edition because
abridgement editions are common. We can do Hebrides and Wales as
separate ebooks I think. How long is Wales?

There are some illustrations, but they mostly look like portraits which
are not interesting--those can be found on Wikipedia. I would cut the
portraits but keep the other stuff like facsimiles of handwriting, etc.

> --
> 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 on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e36670eb-5bb6-4b59-ad89-b8d7be2b89b6n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e36670eb-5bb6-4b59-ad89-b8d7be2b89b6n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

I'm proposing to use the unabridged George Birbeck Hill edition you point to in the Wanted Ebooks page.

It looks as though The Tour to the Hebrides and the Journey into North Wales take up all of Volume 5 (of 6) of the Birbeck Hill edition. Hebrides takes up pages 13 to 475, so is quite a reasonable work in its own right.
Wales is pages 487 to 524, so much shorter. Maybe we could put them together as something like "Travels With Samuel Johnson" ?

Volume 6 is all addenda, bibliography and index. The Addenda might be worth including with the Life. We don't want the bibliography or index, nor, I think the "Dicta Philosopi" - a concordance of Johnsonian sayings.

So the Life itself is Volumes 1 to 4. There'll be a gazillion endnotes and a lot of appendices. Each volume has several appendices, but I'm assuming we'd put them all together at the end of the whole book, perhaps together with the Addenda from Volume 5 as an additional appendix.

[David Grigg]

If we're just doing the Life, I think I would dispense with the division into 4 volumes, which was, I assume, just to break it into publishable books. Just as with Clarissa and Twelve Caesars I'll have to be careful of links in the notes, which may refer to specific volumes, but that's do-able, I think.

[David Grigg]

I must say, having skimmed through it, I'm tempted to cut Birbeck Hill's Preface, in which he details his efforts in putting together the edition, lauds himself a fair bit, and talks at length about the Index (which we're omitting). What do you think? It's not a part of Boswell's work as such.

[Alex Cabal]

If Wales is too short, then maybe we should keep them both. Are they
from Boswell's time or are they an addition of Hill?

We should keep the preface, those are usually interesting.

> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e61a7fb7-4cda-4187-b638-0a77221ff108%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e61a7fb7-4cda-4187-b638-0a77221ff108%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

They are both written by James Boswell in the 1700s. I'm OK if you want to include them in our edition, but I might need your guidance on how to structure that. Just as different Parts? The Life itself I think is just going to be one huge file, because there aren't any chapters to it.

[David Grigg]

Actually, that makes me rethink my idea of getting rid of the Volumes encompassing the Life. It might be better to leave them as four separate files, with Part titles which show the range of years covered (this is the way the volumes are labelled). Then Part 5 is Hebrides and Part 6 is Wales. And maybe Part 7 is "Appendices". I think that's a pretty good structure.

[Alex Cabal]

Yes but were they printed along with an edition of Life in Boswell's
lifetime? Or are they a posthumous repackaging?

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e61a7fb7-4cda-4187-b638-0a77221ff108%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e61a7fb7-4cda-4187-b638-0a77221ff108%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>
>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/a1d00fba-f2a2-4981-a1f6-eb335e2a7d19n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/a1d00fba-f2a2-4981-a1f6-eb335e2a7d19n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

Hmmm. I’ll do some research. It’s hard to imagine that they were first published together, certainly.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8b72f9e7-be9a-06fd-3ecd-28980bf61ce8%40standardebooks.org.

[David Grigg]

It certainly seems that the earliest editions don’t bundle the Life with Tour of the Hebrides or Wales. Hebrides came out as a separate publication several years before the Life.

Here’s the earliest edition I can find on HathiTrust:

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008884208

That’s the fourth British edition, published 1804. No Hebrides or Wales.

They seem to start getting bundled together in the 1830s, eg: Croker’s edition:

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006058568

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8b72f9e7-be9a-06fd-3ecd-28980bf61ce8%40standardebooks.org.

[Alex Cabal]

OK, so maybe what we can just do is do both of them separately. Hebrides
is definitely long enough to be its own ebook. If Boswell has no other
short works besides Wales than we can just do that as a one-off short
book to round out his corpus. But we have to check what the rest of his
corpus looks like.

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

OK. So our edition will be the first four volumes of the Birbeck Hill edition, plus the appendices and addendum. Tour of the Hebrides can be a stand-alone production, and we'll figure out if we want to put together a collection of Boswell's other short works. I don't think we want his poem "No Abolition of Slavery", though!!

I now propose to leave the division of the Life into four volumes, so a rough file structure will be as follows:

Preface and forewords, dedications

Part 1: Life 1709-1765

Part 2: Life 1765-1776

Part 3: Life 1776-1780

Part 4: Life 1780-1784
Part 5: Appendices and Addendum

Endnotes

There are no chapter divisions within parts 1 to 4, so each of those will just be one large file. Part 5 would comprise each appendix as a separate file.

What do you think?

[David Grigg]

Seems like this is still the best portrait of Samuel Johnson, by Sir Joshua Reynolds:

PD proof here: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008620703?urlappend=%3Bseq=155%3Bownerid=13510798896048410-159

[Robin Whittleton]

Wow, Reynolds didn’t go out of his way to be flattering 😅

On 21 Dec 2021, at 06:54, David Grigg <david...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3226801b-4d53-48b0-8bda-90a78b691269n%40googlegroups.com.

[Alex Cabal]

Perfect, thanks!

On 12/20/21 11:54 PM, David Grigg wrote:
>
> Seems like this is still the best portrait of Samuel Johnson, by Sir
> Joshua Reynolds:
>

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/a1d00fba-f2a2-4981-a1f6-eb335e2a7d19n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/a1d00fba-f2a2-4981-a1f6-eb335e2a7d19n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> >>
> >> --
> >> 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.
> >> To view this discussion on the web visit
> >>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8b72f9e7-be9a-06fd-3ecd-28980bf61ce8%40standardebooks.org

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8b72f9e7-be9a-06fd-3ecd-28980bf61ce8%40standardebooks.org>.

>
> >
> > --
> > 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 on the web visit
> >

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark>
>
> >
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>
>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3226801b-4d53-48b0-8bda-90a78b691269n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3226801b-4d53-48b0-8bda-90a78b691269n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Alex Cabal]

Sounds good. How long is each section? It might become unweildy as a
single file for each one. Is there opportunity in the text to divide
them further?

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/a1d00fba-f2a2-4981-a1f6-eb335e2a7d19n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/a1d00fba-f2a2-4981-a1f6-eb335e2a7d19n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> >>
> >> --
> >> 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.
> >> To view this discussion on the web visit
> >>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8b72f9e7-be9a-06fd-3ecd-28980bf61ce8%40standardebooks.org

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8b72f9e7-be9a-06fd-3ecd-28980bf61ce8%40standardebooks.org>.

>
> >
> > --
> > 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 on the web visit
> >

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark>
>
> >
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a0a94c-d24d-4c28-b205-44f7063f17e8%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>
>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/5328e8d7-982e-45ea-a7f6-ecd02e4e9991n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/5328e8d7-982e-45ea-a7f6-ecd02e4e9991n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

I agree they could become unwieldy, but so far as I can see (not having yet read the book), it’s just a continuous narrative, and there are no semantically sensible points at which to break it. Even breaking it into the four volumes in Birkbeck Hill’s edition I guess is also arbitrary, but at least someone else has made that decision. 

Moving the footnotes out of the text will help, because they are voluminous, but at the expense of having a massive endnotes.xhtml file!

[Alex Cabal]

Let's see how big each file is. There may be a practical limit to how
big of a file some ereaders can open, even today. If they look too big
then we can split them into more divisions since as you mention it
doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of order in there anyway.

> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e959feee-92b2-4272-a5ac-d3d0c9324894%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e959feee-92b2-4272-a5ac-d3d0c9324894%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

I guess it would make sense to break it up by year, but I don’t know yet how cleanly Boswell covers the time. The printed Birbeck Hill has years at the top of each odd numbered page, so it’s probably do-able. I worry more about the endnotes — I don’t think we can break up that file?

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/58500058-0cdb-0092-c0e7-73b701a04015%40standardebooks.org.

[Alex Cabal]

I suppose you're right, we've done very long endnote files in the past
and it doesn't seem to have been a problem. I guess let's just do it as
it is in print for now.

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/bf7c9a43-1c2d-45c5-8cb7-e07630ee08af%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/bf7c9a43-1c2d-45c5-8cb7-e07630ee08af%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Vince]

We could have multiple endnote files (one every 1000 notes or something?), if we wanted, but obviously the tools don’t currently support that.

The endnotes for Gibbon is almost 6M. I haven’t built the whole book yet, but if that’s a problem, it will certainly be one for you, too. :) I don’t have any dedicated ereaders, so don’t know how they would fare. Pepys’ endnotes is 2M, and I haven’t heard of any issues with it. I do know from building the first 15 chapters or so of Gibbon that looking up endnotes in even that big a file takes forever (seconds) on, e.g., an iPad Pro, so it will work, but whether it’s functional is another discussion.

[David Grigg]

Thanks, Vince.

I've just had a look at the existing files, and all of the "life" files are under 800 KB each, and the notes files currently add up to about 2.5 MB. With our formatting, I'm imagining the endnotes file will end up about 3 MB so if Pepys works at about that size we'll probably be OK. Good luck with Gibbon, though!

[Vince]

I don’t think you’ll have any trouble, but… Just the text of Gibbon’s endnotes is 3.25M, while the formatted file is 5.75, a 75% increase. It just depends on how many abbreviations, roman numerals, publication tags, emphasis, etc. there is in the notes. So there’s quite a range the endnotes could end up being. I still don’t think it will be a problem, but we’ll find out when we get there, whichever one of us gets there first. :)

[David Grigg]

I've just started to look at the footnotes, and I'm immediately in trouble. A LOT of the footnotes are of this format:

Post, iv. 172  or Ante, p. 78.

These relate to pages of the Life either following or preceding the current note or textual reference. Without page numbers the best I can do is to hyperlink to the relevant passage of text, which means locating such a passage manually in the page scans of the same edition which Gutenberg used (the 1887 edition). Unfortunately only the transcription of the first volume seems to include page numbers in the transcribed text (which I could have turned into anchors). Do I put in such page references?

This could be a VERY slow production!

Any thoughts? Vince, have you had a similar issue with Gibbon? Robin, how about in Pepys?

[Vince]

I only have a handful of ante/post notes, but I do have references to page#’s, either in the text or to a note on the page. I’m keeping a list of them and will have to resolve them when I’m finished with the initial proofing. The problem with those that refer to other notes is that renumbering the notes will not automatically correct them, so I may have to update the list multiple times. I only have about 70 or so right now, and I’m three-fourths of the way through.

You definitely wouldn’t put in the page numbers, you would link to an id on the paragraph where you want to start (either by going back from there or forward from there), updating the text of the note accordingly (see our Art of War, e.g.). Of course, determining the paragraph when only given the page# means reading the text on that page to figure out what he’s talking about. And yes, that will definitely take a while. :(

I have a printed unabridged, but it’s the Modern Library edition, not the one PG is based on, so doesn’t have nearly as many notes as the PG edition. Though it, too, has a lot of “See page X” or just “Page Y” type notes.

[Alex Cabal]

Yes, I had to do this for Wealth of Nations which also took forever. At
least Life will be a pleasant read; Wealth of Nations was not only
laborious but unbelievably boring.

You'll have to replace each of those instances with something like "see
here" and link to the first (or closest) <p> to where the page starts in
whatever print edition the transcription is based on.

On the whole it's not a *great* solution but it's kind of the best we
can do given the limitations of both paper and epub.

On 12/23/21 7:03 PM, David Grigg wrote:
> I've just started to look at the footnotes, and I'm immediately in
> trouble. A LOT of the footnotes are of this format:
>

> /Post/, iv. 172  or /Ante/, p. 78.
>
> These relate to pages of the /Life/ either following or preceding the

> current note or textual reference. Without page numbers the best I can
> do is to hyperlink to the relevant passage of text, which means locating
> such a passage manually in the page scans of the same edition which
> Gutenberg used (the 1887 edition). Unfortunately only the transcription
> of the first volume seems to include page numbers in the transcribed
> text (which I could have turned into anchors). Do I put in such page
> references?
>
> This could be a VERY slow production!
>
> Any thoughts? Vince, have you had a similar issue with Gibbon? Robin,
> how about in Pepys?
>
> On Wednesday, 22 December 2021 at 13:06:35 UTC+11 Vince wrote:
>

> I don’t think you’ll have any trouble, /but/… Just the text of

> Gibbon’s endnotes is 3.25M, while the formatted file is 5.75, a 75%
> increase. It just depends on how many abbreviations, roman numerals,
> publication tags, emphasis, etc. there is in the notes. So there’s
> quite a range the endnotes could end up being. I still don’t

> /think/ it will be a problem, but we’ll find out when we get there,

> whichever one of us gets there first. :)
>
>
>> On Dec 21, 2021, at 7:12 PM, David Grigg <david...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, Vince.
>>
>> I've just had a look at the existing files, and all of the "life"
>> files are under 800 KB each, and the notes files currently add up
>> to about 2.5 MB. With our formatting, I'm imagining the endnotes
>> file will end up about 3 MB so if Pepys works at about that size
>> we'll probably be OK. Good luck with Gibbon, though!
>> On 22 Dec 2021, 11:34 AM +1100, Vince <vr_se...@letterboxes.org>,
>> wrote:
>>

>> We /could/ have multiple endnote files (one every 1000 notes

>> or something?), if we wanted, but obviously the tools don’t
>> currently support that.
>>
>> The endnotes for Gibbon is almost 6M. I haven’t built the
>> whole book yet, but if that’s a problem, it will certainly be
>> one for you, too. :) I don’t have any dedicated ereaders, so
>> don’t know how they would fare. Pepys’ endnotes is 2M, and I
>> haven’t heard of any issues with it. I do know from building
>> the first 15 chapters or so of Gibbon that looking up endnotes
>> in even that big a file takes forever (seconds) on, e.g., an

>> iPad Pro, so it will /work/, but whether it’s functional is
>> another discussion.
>

> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6260a7ea-fb72-4c33-89fc-abdb09405830n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6260a7ea-fb72-4c33-89fc-abdb09405830n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

OK, thanks. Given that there are several thousand footnotes, this is going to become a background project for me, I think, just being nibbled away at when I feel the urge.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9239da15-00f7-3525-7cbd-986fbcc0aa0b%40standardebooks.org.

[David Grigg]

Just gave se renumber-endnotes a heck of a workout, I'm very pleased with it, particularly the reporting of missing, duplicate or orphaned endnotes which enabled me to pick up a heap of issues in the conversion I'd done from the source text. There are 5,556 notes. The endnotes.xhtml file is now almost 3MB in size, and it will grow as I go run our various routines, semanticate the book and play names, etc, etc.

[David Grigg]

A question about placement of punctuation. In this example (of which there are many hundreds), where should the period go? Despite the American rule, it doesn't seem sensible to place it within the quotation marks here after the word "gallery", because of the concluding page reference, which is followed by a period.

"...misrepresented by <em>fellows</em> who thrust themselves into our gallery” (<abbr>Ibid.</abbr> <abbr>p.</abbr> 806).

[B Keith]

...according to my editor the period is correct after the parentheses in this instance. I could look it up in Chicago but she’s write 99% of the time so I didn’t :-)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ce240966-1b76-4d88-8dca-54880d15df3dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Vince]

There are thousands of those in Gibbon, and I’ve left them. I’m ignoring any other emails after this one, because I’m not interested in having to change them. :)

[David Grigg]

OK, thanks.

Another question, maybe for Alex:

I'd like to expand abbreviations like "Gent. Mag." and "Parl. Hist." with "Gentleman's Magazine" and "Parliamentary History" (and probably lots of others, but these caught my eye initially). Should such expansions go into a separate [Editorial] commit, in that we're changing our version from what is in the scans? I'm assuming so, but would be grateful for guidance.

[Alex Cabal]

Sure, you can do that in an editorial commit.

> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/fe5b28d5-384a-46c1-8bf5-5b9e40999266n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/fe5b28d5-384a-46c1-8bf5-5b9e40999266n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

A question about capitalisation. Much of Boswell's Life is reports of conversations like this:

Now, I will use <b> tags to style the names as small-caps, but should they also get tagged as z3998:surname ?

And what about CHRIST and GOD. Should I also style them as small-caps, or just remove the caps entirely? I think I'd prefer the latter, but then I'm not a Christian and maybe that's influencing me.

[Anthony J. Bentley]

I would not generally use all caps or small caps for “Christ” or “God.” It is customary
to set “Lord” in small caps, though, if it’s standing in for the Tetragrammaton.

[Alex Cabal]

Sure, you can add that semantic. Don't small caps Christ or God, those
are usually only capitalized.

On 1/14/22 8:04 PM, David Grigg wrote:
> A question about capitalisation. Much of Boswell's /Life/ is reports of
> conversations like this:

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/fe5b28d5-384a-46c1-8bf5-5b9e40999266n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/fe5b28d5-384a-46c1-8bf5-5b9e40999266n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>
>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/538b09b3-cfb8-4db4-9c19-abe72437c106n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/538b09b3-cfb8-4db4-9c19-abe72437c106n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

I'm in some difficulties here, and would welcome your advice.

The Preface by George Birbeck-Hill talks at length about his index, which obviously we can't include. But he also talks in the Preface about the "Dicta Philosophi" which is Birbeck-Hill's concordance of Johnson's sayings (screenshot below). I don't much want to include this as a "glossary", or at all really. But if I exclude it, what do I do about such intra-book references to the Index, Bibliography and Concordance we're not including? Edit the Preface to exclude these references?

Here's the reference in the Preface:

[Alex Cabal]

How often do they occur? You could simply add an endnote saying that the
SE edition doesn't include these items.

On 4/14/22 8:24 PM, David Grigg wrote:
> I'm in some difficulties here, and would welcome your advice.
>
> The Preface by George Birbeck-Hill talks at length about his index,
> which obviously we can't include. But he also talks in the Preface about
> the "Dicta Philosophi" which is Birbeck-Hill's concordance of Johnson's
> sayings (screenshot below). I don't much want to include this as a
> "glossary", or at all really. But if I exclude it, what do I do about
> such intra-book references to the Index, Bibliography and Concordance
> we're not including? Edit the Preface to exclude these references?
>

> Screenshot 2022-04-15 11-15-39.jpg
>
> Here's the reference in the Preface:
>

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/538b09b3-cfb8-4db4-9c19-abe72437c106n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/538b09b3-cfb8-4db4-9c19-abe72437c106n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>
>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b05b1d4f-6efb-43d4-a29e-c7d580e2fad1n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b05b1d4f-6efb-43d4-a29e-c7d580e2fad1n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

OK, that’s a good idea, will do.

Do you agree with dropping the Dicta Philosophi?

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/93b08fd4-db06-5ae4-9078-efb4560bfc33%40standardebooks.org.

[David Grigg]

These "ante" and "post" references are driving me batshit crazy, as there are many, many thousands of them and for each one I have to figure out what it is meant to refer to so I can hyperlink to it. 

Worse, when I try to follow some of these references I don't find what Birbeck-Hill thinks he is pointing to. Or they can be impossibly vague, eg: "see post, 1780" or "Ante, beginning of 1782", which make it impossible to know what he's referencing.I think I'm just going to cut any ante/post reference to which I can't find a sensible referent.

In any case, I'll make all of these changes part of a (big!) [Editorial] commit.

One question for Alex: some of Boswell's "paragraphs" run over many pages without a break. In such cases when I'm trying to link a page number reference to a particular topic, it's hopeless to just link to the start of the paragraph, which could be several ebook pages away from the referent. In such cases, I'm currently putting in anchors at the appropriate point, like this: <a id="III-page-65" />.  Is that OK?  (By the way. that format of id is just temporary for my purposes so I can keep track, I will change them all later to the form the SEMOS dictates).

[David Grigg]

"I think I'm just going to cut any ante/post reference to which I can't find a sensible referent."

That wasn't quite clear. What I meant is that I'll cut the <i>ante</> or <i>post</i> bit and leave the text as just "see 1780" or "see beginning of 1782". That's still pretty hopeless for the reader, but it's what Birbeck-Hill has given us.

[Alex Cabal]

Does `post 1780` refer to a year or a page number?

If it's something as vague as a year then I don't think it even makes
sense to try to hyperlink that. It could refer to almost anything.

You can use `<a>` anchors, but make a note in the production-notes so
that we know why they're there in the future.

On 4/20/22 11:10 PM, David Grigg wrote:
> These "ante" and "post" references are driving me batshit crazy, as
> there are many, many thousands of them and for each one I have to figure
> out what it is meant to refer to so I can hyperlink to it.
>
> Worse, when I try to follow some of these references I don't find what
> Birbeck-Hill thinks he is pointing to. Or they can be impossibly vague,

> eg: "see /post/, 1780" or "/Ante/, beginning of 1782", which make it

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b05b1d4f-6efb-43d4-a29e-c7d580e2fad1n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b05b1d4f-6efb-43d4-a29e-c7d580e2fad1n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>>
>> --
>> 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.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/93b08fd4-db06-5ae4-9078-efb4560bfc33%40standardebooks.org

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/93b08fd4-db06-5ae4-9078-efb4560bfc33%40standardebooks.org>.

>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ee670ecb-ffad-4789-b0da-2fb01b22d754n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ee670ecb-ffad-4789-b0da-2fb01b22d754n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

It’s referring to a year. I agree that it’s so vague as to be useless even for readers of the print book. I think I’ll just remove such, as you suggest.

References to actual page numbers are clear (eg ante, vol. IV, p. 231) and I’m doing my best to hyperlink those, but it can be a challenge!

A couple more questions, though I think I’m already convincing myself of the answers: many, many of these “see p. 231” type links are in footnotes which contain no other information than that. So the question is, does it even make sense for these to be endnotes? What’s the point of seeing an endnote link in the main text, touching it, and having a pop-up saying just “See here” (with ‘here’ being a hyperlink) when the reader can’t click on that? Shouldn’t I replace the endnote link with inserted text in the body which says “(see here)”, providing a hyperlink which the reader can actually use? 

And if the footnote was like “See post vol. II p. 144 note 5”, of which there are also many, shouldn’t I change this, not as I’m currently doing—to an endnote popping up reading “See this note”, with “this note” being hyperlinked—but a direct popup of the referenced note itself? Clearly from the reader’s point of view I should, but then we would potentially end up with duplicated endnote links.

I’m starting to think that the answer to the question I posed in the title of this thread is “Yes, totally crazy!”

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3cb04997-c485-04b2-0346-b047dd6b2c1c%40standardebooks.org.

[Alex Cabal]

On 4/21/22 5:55 PM, David Grigg wrote:
> It’s referring to a year. I agree that it’s so vague as to be useless
> even for readers of the print book. I think I’ll just remove such, as
> you suggest.

Well don't *remove* it, just don't *hyperlink* it.

> A couple more questions, though I think I’m already convincing myself of
> the answers: many, many of these “see p. 231” type links are in
> footnotes which contain no other information than that. So the question
> is, does it even make sense for these to be endnotes? What’s the point
> of seeing an endnote link in the main text, touching it, and having a
> pop-up saying just “See here” (with ‘here’ being a hyperlink) when the
> reader can’t click on that? Shouldn’t I replace the endnote link with
> inserted text in the body which says “(see here)”, providing a hyperlink
> which the reader can actually use?

Hmm... I think having an endnote is less intrusive, and gives the reader
the option to just skip over it (if the reader is uninterested in the
endnotes in general), as opposed to having a "see here" link inserted
directly into the text which is more in-your-face. Some ereaders might
not render hyperlinks in popup endnotes, but others do, and of course
the raw endnotes file does; and as I've mentioned to Vince, we should
create these ebooks with the future in mind, which is a future where
popup endnotes have working hyperlinks everywhere.

I think it's kind of a coin toss in terms of usability so I would rather
be conservative and leave them as endnotes.

> And if the footnote was like “See /post/ vol. II p. 144 note 5”, of

> which there are also many, shouldn’t I change this, not as I’m currently
> doing—to an endnote popping up reading “See this note”, with “this note”
> being hyperlinked—but a direct popup of the referenced note itself?
> Clearly from the reader’s point of view I should, but then we would
> potentially end up with duplicated endnote links.

That sounds OK in theory but as you noted, it would result in duplicate
noterefs and a potentially confusing situation where, in the text,
noteref 45 comes after noteref 231. The reader might think there's an
error there, because we took an unclear shortcut - I can imagine us
getting endless "typo reports" from well-meaning readers who think we
inserted a noteref in the wrong place. So again, I think we should keep
the endnote there.

This ebook is going to be a LOT of work, but we knew that going in!

[David Grigg]

OK, well your suggestions match what I’m currently doing, so that’s some less work!

Actually, I enjoy a challenge, so I’m not really complaining, just venting!

--
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.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/786b7603-1692-94f7-df78-0439cc363e2c%40standardebooks.org.

[Vince]

On Apr 21, 2022, at 6:29 PM, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:

…
Some ereaders might not render hyperlinks in popup endnotes, but others do…

It’s not a matter of readers not rendering the hyperlinks, it’s a matter of the hyperlinks working (to another endnote; links in endnotes to text did mostly work in my testing). IOW, tapping on them does nothing, or does a completely wrong thing.

I’ve asked this question before: what ereaders (hardware or software) fully support endnotes with a link to another endnote, i.e. having tapped on the first-level endnote reference and getting the endnote text however the reader does it, you can then tap on the link in that endnote and view the second-level endnote directly?

None of the ones do that I (and others, at the time) tried when I first started looking at Gibbon. Granted, that’s been two years, so something could have changed since then. But as long as the answer is zero (and, as far as I know right now, it is zero), then we are hurting every current reader for some mythical, utopian future where ereader vendors actually care about their reading experience.

[David Grigg]

It's worth saying that in the case of Boswell, there are no (or very few) footnotes to footnotes as such, which I think is your problem in Gibbon.

It's more that there are footnotes which refer to other footnotes, eg: blah blah blah, and see this other note here", so what I've got is hyperlinks within one note linking to another, not endnote links inside endnotes (which don't work, as you've pointed out). As I understand it, such hyperlinks should work in most ereader devices. Certainly they'll work fine if the (human) reader is working their way through endnotes.xhtml as such.

--

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.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A1600646-23DA-4AD3-BC23-DEC4FF9F753C%40letterboxes.org.

[David Grigg]

OK, major announcement: I'm thinking of going right back to scratch with this project, for a variety of reasons. All is not lost, however: I've gained a pretty good understanding of what I have to work with; I know the manual modernize-spellings I'll need to do; I know where a lot of the target anchors need to be for "see page NNN" references, and so on. I haven't yet started to proof the actual body text.

Why do I want to go back to scratch, then?

Firstly, I can no longer be completely confident that I've kept my [Editorial] commits completely clean given my newer understanding about what we consider Editorial (for example, I hadn't considered removing periods after roman numerals to be be Editorial), and I've taken on board Alex's direction that we should do more "atomic" commits.

Secondly, there are a number of faults in the transcription on which I need to make better notes in order to advise Gutenberg about them.

Most importantly, I am no longer of the opinion that it's possible to separate out the Life from Tour to the Hebrides and Diary of a Journey to Wales, all of which are contained within the Birbeck-Hill edition which Gutenberg transcribed and for which I have page scans.

The problem is that many, many of Birbeck-Hill's footnotes/endnotes link between all three works. I tried just changing "see page NNNN" links to Volume V and VI to be generic references to Hebrides and Diary, but it seems weird for me to give page number references to these as though they were to separate books, whereas in fact they are within the same Birbeck-Hill edition.

I would propose that we do the whole of Birbeck-Hill as one production, perhaps with a title/subtitle of Life of Samuel Johnson/Including Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson’s Diary of a Journey Into North Wales.

What do you think?

[Alex Cabal]

Well, I'm not crazy about including those two along with Life. It's not
like they were published together initially - publishing them together
was Birbeck Hill's own editorial choice 100 years after the fact, and as
we discussed they could certainly be produced separately.

How many endnotes refer to Hebrides/Wales by specific page number? The
thing is too, is that it's not like we can have specific page numbers in
ebooks anyway. We'd already have to replace specific page number
references with *something* that's not page numbers. Would it really be
so bad to replace them all with "see this section of Hebrides/Wales" and
maybe even cross link to a hash in those separate ebooks? Like:

See <a
href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/boswell/hebrides/text/chapter-3#chapter-3-p-12">this
section of Hebrides</a>.

I suppose that would mean you'd produce those other two books
simultaneously, but you'd be doing that anyway if we put them all into
one ebook.

On 7/3/22 8:20 PM, David Grigg wrote:
> OK, major announcement: I'm thinking of going right back to scratch with
> this project, for a variety of reasons. All is not lost, however: I've
> gained a pretty good understanding of what I have to work with; I know
> the manual modernize-spellings I'll need to do; I know where a lot of
> the target anchors need to be for "see page NNN" references, and so on.
> I haven't yet started to proof the actual body text.
>
> Why do I want to go back to scratch, then?
>
> Firstly, I can no longer be completely confident that I've kept my
> [Editorial] commits completely clean given my newer understanding about
> what we consider Editorial (for example, I hadn't considered removing
> periods after roman numerals to be be Editorial), and I've taken on
> board Alex's direction that we should do more "atomic" commits.
>
> Secondly, there are a number of faults in the transcription on which I
> need to make better notes in order to advise Gutenberg about them.
>
> Most importantly, I am no longer of the opinion that it's possible to

> separate out the /Life/ from /Tour to the Hebrides/ and /Diary of a
> Journey to Wales/, all of which are contained within the Birbeck-Hill

> edition which Gutenberg transcribed and for which I have page scans.
>
> The problem is that many, many of Birbeck-Hill's footnotes/endnotes link
> between all three works. I tried just changing "see page NNNN" links to

> Volume V and VI to be generic references to /Hebrides/ and /Diary/, but

> it seems weird for me to give page number references to these as though
> they were to separate books, whereas in fact they are within the same
> Birbeck-Hill edition.
>
> I would propose that we do the whole of Birbeck-Hill as one production,

> perhaps with a title/subtitle of /Life of Samuel Johnson/Including

> Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson’s Diary of a

> Journey Into North Wales/.

>
> What do you think?
>
> On Friday, 22 April 2022 at 14:13:42 UTC+10 David Grigg wrote:
>
> It's worth saying that in the case of Boswell, there are no (or very
> few) footnotes to footnotes as such, which I think is your problem
> in Gibbon.
>

> It's more that there are footnotes which /refer/ to other footnotes,

> eg: blah blah blah, and see this other note here", so what I've got
> is hyperlinks within one note linking to another, not endnote links
> inside endnotes (which don't work, as you've pointed out). As I
> understand it, such hyperlinks should work in most ereader devices.
> Certainly they'll work fine if the (human) reader is working their
> way through endnotes.xhtml as such.
> On 22 Apr 2022, 9:52 AM +1000, Vince <vr_se...@letterboxes.org>, wrote:
>>> On Apr 21, 2022, at 6:29 PM, Alex Cabal
>>> <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:
>>> …
>>> Some ereaders might not render hyperlinks in popup endnotes, but
>>> others do…
>>

>> It’s not a matter of readers not /rendering/ the hyperlinks, it’s
>> a matter of the hyperlinks /working/(to another endnote; links in

>> endnotes to text did mostly work in my testing). IOW, tapping on
>> them does nothing, or does a completely wrong thing.
>>
>> I’ve asked this question before: what ereaders (hardware or
>> software) fully support endnotes with a link to another endnote,
>> i.e. having tapped on the first-level endnote reference and
>> getting the endnote text however the reader does it, you can then
>> tap on the link in that endnote and view the second-level endnote
>> directly?

>> /
>> /
>> /None/ of the ones do that I (and others, at the time) tried when

>> I first started looking at Gibbon. Granted, that’s been two years,
>> so something could have changed since then. But as long as the

>> answer is zero (and, as far as I know right now, it /is/ zero),
>> then we are hurting /every/ current reader for some mythical,

>> utopian future where ereader vendors actually care about their
>> reading experience.
>>
>> --
>>
>> 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.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A1600646-23DA-4AD3-BC23-DEC4FF9F753C%40letterboxes.org

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A1600646-23DA-4AD3-BC23-DEC4FF9F753C%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
> --
> 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 on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8281df25-b3f0-4e43-9051-93558a72f366n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8281df25-b3f0-4e43-9051-93558a72f366n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

OK, I’m sure you’re right. But I still think I need to go back almost not quite to scratch and produce all three works pretty well simultaneously, matching each step. There are a few, not many but some,  “economies of scale”!

I think I’ll also start a new thread for the project here on the forum.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/d1028272-33db-476e-9d3c-7bd82378a56b%40standardebooks.org.