Any interest in "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley?

[Kevin Palm]

The extra yard work I've been doing since I retired has finally began to slow to something manageable, and I'm thinking of making my third attempt (hopefully my first successful one) at producing an ebook.  Would "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley be a possibility?  It seems appropriate in these times!  :-)

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247

Cheers,
Kevin

[Alex Cabal]

That one's too long for a first production. We ask that first
productions be about 100k words or less. See
https://standardebooks.org/contribute/wanted-ebooks

What happened to Sea-Hawk?

On 7/5/21 8:32 AM, Kevin Palm wrote:
> The extra yard work I've been doing since I retired has finally began to
> slow to something manageable, and I'm thinking of making my third
> attempt (hopefully my first successful one) at producing an ebook.
> Would "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley be a possibility?  It seems
> appropriate in these times!  :-)
>

> *https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247
> *
> Cheers,
> Kevin
>
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[Kevin Palm]

I guess I thought someone else had started it after I abandoned it.  If not, could I give it a go again? I'd be starting from scratch since I deleted my repository,  but I hadn't gotten very far in my first go round anyway.

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[Alex Cabal]

It's still on our wanted ebooks list so you can start it over if you
want. Make sure to send me a link to your repo when you get started, and
re-review the email I sent when you first began the book, as it contains
important information relevant to this book. Thanks!

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[François Grandjean]

I had planned to work on Mary Shelley’s The Last Man after Thus Spake Zarathustra but since you have expressed interest in it, I should give you a chance to finish The Sea-Hawk and then attempt The Last Man if you are still keen on working on it by then. That sounds like correct SE etiquette. If so: good luck on both projects, Kevin!

That said, let it be noted that I’d like to be considered next in line of succession for this book in case it ends up free once more. In the meantime, there are plenty of other books I’d like to work on.

[Kevin Palm]

Honestly, François, it's going to take me a while to figure out what the heck I'm doing,  so feel free to take on The Last Man!

You'll probably finish before I do!  ;-)

Cheers,

Kevin

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[François Grandjean]

Thank you, Kevin. Still, let's just wait in case Alex, or someone else, has something to say on this topic. In any case, I really don't mind starting work on another book if that gives you time to reconsider.

[Alex Cabal]

You can start it if you want Francois. Ebooks can take a long time to
produce and if we're always waiting on someone else's preferences we'd
never get anything done :)

On 7/9/21 5:30 PM, François Grandjean wrote:
> Thank you, Kevin. Still, let's just wait in case Alex, or someone else,
> has something to say on this topic. In any case, I really don't mind
> starting work on another book if that gives you time to reconsider.
>
> On Thursday, 8 July 2021 at 21:39:52 UTC-5 pipe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Honestly, François, it's going to take me a while to figure out what
> the heck I'm doing,  so feel free to take on The Last Man!
>
> You'll probably finish before I do!  ;-)
>
> Cheers,
> Kevin
>
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2021, 10:36 PM François Grandjean
> <francois....@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> I had planned to work on Mary Shelley’s /The Last Man/ after
> /Thus Spake Zarathustra/ but since you have expressed interest
> in it, I should give you a chance to finish /The Sea-Hawk/ and
> then attempt /The Last Man/ if you are still keen on working on

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[François Grandjean]

Alrighty. I’ve got back enough of my mind from Zarathustra that I can probably start now.

[François Grandjean]

The original edition of the first part has two chapter 4 (4, 4, 5, 6, etc.) and the PG transcription replicates this. There doesn’t seem to be any justification in the book for it, and later editions fix it, numbering the following chapters as expected (4, 5, 6, 7, etc.). I guess it’s okay to correct it but I prefer to ask.

[Alex Cabal]

Yes, you can correct that, thanks!

On 9/9/21 10:15 AM, François Grandjean wrote:
> The original edition of the first part has two chapter 4 (4, 4, 5, 6,
> etc.) and the PG transcription replicates this. There doesn’t seem to be
> any justification in the book for it, and later editions fix it,
> numbering the following chapters as expected (4, 5, 6, 7, etc.). I guess
> it’s okay to correct it but I prefer to ask.
>
> On Friday, 9 July 2021 at 20:49:50 UTC-5 François Grandjean wrote:
>

> Alrighty. I’ve got back enough of my mind from /Zarathustra/ that I

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[François Grandjean]

Still ongoing. Work has kept me horribly busy these past few months. I also realised that I forgot to give a link to the repo: https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man (Sorry!)

I daresay I’ve found a suitable cover: Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle, by Arnold Böcklin (PD proof).

It’s eerily creepy. The man appears to be looking for something, perhaps listening, not aware that Death is right behind, seemingly taunting him by playing on a fiddle. A fitting cover for a book about a man witnessing the slow annihilation of the modern world through a pandemic.

I initially thought of using Caspar David Friedrich’s The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog but couldn’t find PD proof. Then again that painting has been used for so many editions of the book that it is probably for the best ours uses something different.

[Robin Whittleton]

Unfortunately that’s already in use for A Journal of the Plague Year: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/daniel-defoe/a-journal-of-the-plague-year

On 29 Nov 2021, at 05:13, François Grandjean <francois....@gmail.com> wrote:

Still ongoing. Work has kept me horribly busy these past few months. I also realised that I forgot to give a link to the repo: https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man (Sorry!)

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[François Grandjean]

Rats! I was afraid of that.

[David Grigg]

And the Caspar David Friedrich painting you mention has also been used, for Lyrical Ballads, the collection of poetry by Coleridge and Wordsworth.

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[François Grandjean]

Well, dear $DEITY, that settles it. Back to the drawing board with me.

[Ross Poldark]

Is there a list somewhere of all the artwork already in use?

[François Grandjean]

I’m not sure. It could be something interesting to have. That data can probably be extracted from the corpus.

In the meantime, I just assume that whatever nice painting I find is already in use. :D

[Vince]

I believe Alex has a master list, but it’s not generally available. It’s easy enough to just search the SE GitHub repositories, though, which is what I usually do if I suspect I’ve seen it before.

[Alex Cabal]

No, but an online art catalog with data on what's in use is something we
desperately need.

Anybody with PHP experience interested in working on something like that
for the site?

On 11/29/21 12:00 PM, 'Ross Poldark' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> Is there a list somewhere of all the artwork already in use?
>
> On Monday, November 29, 2021 at 8:59:33 AM UTC-5 francois....@gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> Well, dear $DEITY, that settles it. Back to the drawing board with me.
>
> On Monday, 29 November 2021 at 02:31:10 UTC-6 david...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> And the Caspar David Friedrich painting you mention has also

> been used, for /Lyrical Ballads/, the collection of poetry by

> Coleridge and Wordsworth.
>
> On 29 Nov 2021, 5:37 PM +1100, François Grandjean
> <francois....@gmail.com>, wrote:
>> Rats! I was afraid of that.
>>
>> On Sunday, 28 November 2021 at 23:33:44 UTC-6 robin wrote:
>>

>> Unfortunately that’s already in use for /A Journal of the
>> Plague Year/:
>> https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/daniel-defoe/a-journal-of-the-plague-year

>> <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/daniel-defoe/a-journal-of-the-plague-year>
>>
>>> On 29 Nov 2021, at 05:13, François Grandjean
>>> <francois....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Still ongoing. Work has kept me horribly busy these past
>>> few months. I also realised that I forgot to give a link
>>> to the repo:
>>> https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man
>>> <https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man> (Sorry!)
>>>
>>> I daresay I’ve found a suitable cover: Self-Portrait with
>>> Death Playing the Fiddle

>>> <https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/self-portrait-with-death-playing-the-fiddle-arnold-b%C3%B6cklin/qQFJu2y_sT8mlg>,
>>> by Arnold Böcklin (PD proof
>>> <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.fl3nz1&view=1up&seq=112>).

>>>
>>> cover_small.jpg
>>>
>>> It’s eerily creepy. The man appears to be looking for
>>> something, perhaps listening, not aware that Death is
>>> right behind, seemingly taunting him by playing on a
>>> fiddle. A fitting cover for a book about a man witnessing
>>> the slow annihilation of the modern world through a pandemic.
>>>
>>> I initially thought of using Caspar David Friedrich’s The
>>> Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

>>> <https://online-sammlung.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en/objekt/HK-5161> but

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/26b20561-67b9-4957-882b-d31f1ed81f1cn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/26b20561-67b9-4957-882b-d31f1ed81f1cn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>>>
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>>
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[David Grigg]

Alex: I have some very rusty PHP knowledge (it doesn’t rise to the level of “skill”!). Where is the data stored? Is it only in the colophons of the corpus?

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[Alex Cabal]

I have a spreadsheet but if we're doing this we would create a mysql
database. We need a complete cover art clearinghouse: storing cover art
possibilities by keyword, marking used cover art, accepting submissions
for new art, etc. So it would be quite a big project.

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e168f82f-d5af-4dad-9194-17f81648c0d3%40Spark
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/e168f82f-d5af-4dad-9194-17f81648c0d3%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Grigg]

Yes,  that”s the long term goal, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A dynamically updated, searchable list of the artwork currently being used in the corpus would be a great step forward.

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[David Grigg]

A quick thought: visitors to the website can already search and order the list of books by author or title. What if they could also filter and order by cover artist (information which is already in the metadata)? Would that be a quick way for producers to scan through for an artist they are looking for?

[Alex Cabal]

Yes but that's not something regular visitors need. It's just for producers.

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[François Grandjean]

Let’s try this again—I’m a glutton for punishment. Although, this time, I did go through the whole collection to make sure.

I’ve found this Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower, by Thomas Cole (and it comes with PD proof). Cole has painted quite a few beautiful ruins but this is the only one that I could find PD proof for that fit the theme.

Quite different from my previous attempt but I daresay it works too: the lone ruined tower gives a sense of solitude and devastation; additionally, part of the story is set in the Mediterranean so the style also fits that part.

[Alex Cabal]

That works, thanks!

In general if you're finding many of your submissions are already in
use, remember that the museum ones are always the first to go because
they're easy to search for. In fact this one was recently suggested for
an earlier production (but was declined) so you lucked out!

On 11/30/21 1:14 AM, François Grandjean wrote:
> Let’s try this again—I’m a glutton for punishment. Although, this time,
> I did go through the whole collection to make sure.
>
> I’ve found this Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower

> <https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.82649.html>, by Thomas

> Cole (and it comes with PD proof). Cole has painted quite a few
> beautiful ruins but this is the only one that I could find PD proof for
> that fit the theme.
>

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[François Grandjean]

Mary Shelley’s The Last Man is finally ready for review!

https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man

This certainly took a lot longer than I had initially anticipated. Starting a new job in the middle of it didn’t help either—those were some demanding months.

And then there was the book itself. I had read it in French many years ago but remembered little of it—methinks I abandoned it as some point and never finished it. It is a long-winded, meandering, melodramatic affair with a very slow beginning—the real story only starts a few chapters into part 2. There is definitely a good book in there, with some effective storytelling, but it needed a good editor. Mary Shelley’s husband did that job on Frankenstein, but he had died by the time The Last Man came out. It also didn’t help that the original publisher didn’t seem to pay much attention, e.g., the first part originally featured two chapters 4. Interestingly, there is an ongoing project to edit the book and make it more bearable—once it is finished, it might be the preferred way to read this story.

And then at times it hit close to home. The depictions of the disease and its spread, deaths,  social distancing, and the desperate recklessness of those isolated for too long were eerily similar to our own reality. And at times it got so dark it almost veered into nihilism—not what I needed when struggling with life.

I’m glad I worked on it, though. There is a good tale in there despite the boring parts, and there are some interesting contrasts with other works described within—in particular, it lead me to listen to and enjoy Haydn’s The Creation.

On a more practical note: a fair amount of work was needed to modernise and normalise spelling. Place names were also given their modernised spelling, e.g., Chamonix instead of Chamounix, or given their diacritics back. There are several Editorial commits as a result; I tried to be sensible by lumping together similar modifications, e.g. past tenses like tost for tossed, and at times splitting them as with normalisation. If needed, I can of course modify the history and either merge or split some of these.

Two latin phrases were not italicised since they are in M-W: hic jacet and ipse dixit. They aren’t common, though, so italicising them wouldn’t be much of a hassle if deemed necessary.

Place names were modernised, as mentioned, with the exception of Stamboul. It isn’t a perfect sound-alike of Istanbul, and, more importantly, it seems that, when the book was written, there was a distinction between Stamboul and Constantinople: the latter referred to the city as a whole while the former was used for the fortified part.

I still need to review my list of errata to submit to PG, but I wanted to get the review process started here first.

[Alex Cabal]

Weijia, do you have time to review this?

On 10/12/22 1:09 AM, François Grandjean wrote:
> Mary Shelley’s /The Last Man/ is finally ready for review!

>
> https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man
> <https://github.com/Gragt/mary-shelley_the-last-man>
>
> This certainly took a lot longer than I had initially anticipated.
> Starting a new job in the middle of it didn’t help either—those were
> some demanding months.
>
> And then there was the book itself. I had read it in French many years
> ago but remembered little of it—methinks I abandoned it as some point
> and never finished it. It is a long-winded, meandering, melodramatic
> affair with a very slow beginning—the real story only starts a few
> chapters into part 2. There is definitely a good book in there, with
> some effective storytelling, but it needed a good editor. Mary Shelley’s

> husband did that job on /Frankenstein/, but he had died by the time /The
> Last Man/ came out. It also didn’t help that the original publisher

> didn’t seem to pay much attention, e.g., the first part originally
> featured two chapters 4. Interestingly, there is an ongoing project

> <https://thelastman.blog> to edit the book and make it more

> bearable—once it is finished, it might be the preferred way to read this
> story.
>
> And then at times it hit close to home. The depictions of the disease
> and its spread, deaths,  social distancing, and the desperate
> recklessness of those isolated for too long were eerily similar to our
> own reality. And at times it got so dark it almost veered into
> nihilism—not what I needed when struggling with life.
>
> I’m glad I worked on it, though. There is a good tale in there despite
> the boring parts, and there are some interesting contrasts with other
> works described within—in particular, it lead me to listen to and enjoy

> Haydn’s /The Creation/.

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

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[Weijia Cheng]

Sure, I can review this. I'll probably start tonight.

[Weijia Cheng]

François, this looks quite good. I left some review comments, mostly having to do with spelling.

[François Grandjean]

Thanks, Weija. It’s getting late here so I’ll work on it tomorrow.

[François Grandjean]

All done, Weija. Your ability to spot subtle errors amazes me.

I’ve left a comment on the repo. I’ve effected all your suggestions, although there are three I wonder about. you can find my rationale there.

If you want me to change/revert them, let me know and I will do that. If it is your opinion that things are good as they are now, then that’s it for me unless you think there is something else.

By the way, I’ve written this as a production note for future reference, but what about hic jacet and ipse dixit? They are in M-W so I didn’t italicise them but they seem uncommon enough to me that we might want to italicise them anyway.

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, I'll try to get a second review in tomorrow on Sunday.

I think hic jacet and ipse dixit are fine as is, by my reading of the M-W rule, but maybe Alex might want to change that on the final review. I'm not sure, they do seem to be in that grey area.

[François Grandjean]

Exactly. Last time I checked, the discussion ended with the rule (which I followed) that if it is in M-W, it shouldn’t be italicised but that there could be exceptions. These two aren’t particularly common, so I wondered if anyone (you, Alex, someone who cares enough about this) would care to voice their opinion.

Also, I just realised that I have been misspelling your name all this time. I’m sorry!

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, I just posted a second review. I realized that I had sent you on the wrong direction with the "Elect" thing (I think you were right the first time). Besides that I had only one other thing and this is close to being ready for publication.

[François Grandjean]

All done! Let me know if you find something else.

[Weijia Cheng]

Yep, this looks good. Alex, this is ready for you.

[Alex Cabal]

OK, this looks good and I've gone ahead and released it.

Great work as always François. Excellent work on updating all of the old
spellings in there. Thanks!

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com>>
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[François Grandjean]

I wondered whether to compile a list of all of these for possible inclusion in the toolset. My feeling is that most of those aren’t particularly common. There are also some “fun” facts like Mary Shelley using the word aziolo to describe a bird. It took me a while to find out that this how she and her late husband called the Eurasian Scops Owl. They believed it to be the Italian name while they were the only ones using that word.

[Alex Cabal]

Yeah we only want to include ones that are fairly common. A search
through the corpus will give you a hint. There are too many weird
spelling permutations of too many words to make a totally comprehensive
list make any sense; much of it is up to the producer to spot rare weird
spellings.

On 10/18/22 7:25 PM, François Grandjean wrote:
> I wondered whether to compile a list of all of these for possible
> inclusion in the toolset. My feeling is that most of those aren’t
> particularly common. There are also some “fun” facts like Mary Shelley
> using the word aziolo to describe a bird. It took me a while to find out
> that this how she and her late husband called the Eurasian Scops Owl

> <https://ebird.org/species/eursco1>. They believed it to be the Italian

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6f7512f5-4cf4-44a9-8c4b-e226bd5fa498n%40googlegroups.com>>>
> > > >
> > >
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