Additional collections?

[John Reid]

Hi folks,

The recent enquiry here about "best of" collections on SE (https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/WBpzl0T1lAc) got me thinking about the 'discovery' experience on the site. Adding a handful more of these collections would be a simple way (requiring no new site features) to encourage discovery in the large and growing SE corpus. :) It's just adding a few lines to the content.opf of the included works (I'm perfectly happy to do all the PRs for these, too, if it's decided we want them).

At the moment we have the Modern Library collection and the Pulitzer Prize collection, both very good. And of course, there's likely to be a lot of overlap between the various "100 best" lists out there which, on the one hand, makes including too many of these quite redundant; but on the other hand, many of the ebooks in the collection are widely praised and probably deserve to be discovered by browsers. And having a list of "Part of the xxx best books collection" at the top of the description helps readers who don't really know what they're looking at gauge the critical standing of these works.

In terms of literary awards, I couldn't find much that exists pre-1925... at least not that would carry recognition with a casual modern reader. One exception to this is the Nobel Prize in Literature, starting 1901: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Literature. However the prize is awarded to an author, not for a specific work; using this list would be a matter, I think, of us nominating one 'great' work in the collection for each winner (or putting that work on the wanted ebooks list). This is quite a lot more work, and relies on our critical judgement. One great thing about the Nobel Prize winners though is that they are quite linguistically diverse (Euro-centric, but nonetheless, at least it's not simply English language writers).

So, lists of great books. An incomplete list of lists here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_book_lists

I've got my own prejudices, but these are ones I'd consider including on SE:

* The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list

Conveniently in chronological order. A sample of the first 20 shows that we have all 20 in the SE corpus.

* The BBC: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels

In the top 20, two are not yet PD, and the other 18 are all on SE.

* Le Monde: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_Century

Being 20th century only, this list has relatively few PD works, and of those, only a small number are in the SE collection at the moment. The appeal of this list, though, is that it's books written in many languages, and many of these works can be added to the wanted list, in English or translated forms. It also doesn't overlap with the existing or other candidate lists much.

There's plenty more candidates, obviously, but in terms of high recognition, those seem to me to be good candidates.

Anyway, I'll leave this suggestion here for discussion/criticism/ridicule now! :)

[John Reid]

Another quite fun list to consider: The Telegraph's 50 greatest villains in literature. Bit of a mixed list, and not the most studied of selections, but it includes quite a lot of PD works both in and not in the SE corpus: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/greatest-villains-literature/marquise-de-merteuil/

The list's site is horrible clickbait, but the list is decent (and quite a fun discovery mechanism for the collection).

[Jared Updike]

I found these two in the past: Hammerton and Mee's World's Greatest Books (over 500 books), 1922 (and earlier):

- https://jared.updike.org/posts/2007-11-18-worlds-greatest-books.html

We have a lot of the fiction already in SE. But the list includes loads of other non-fiction categories, drama, poetry, etc.

And on that same web page are the Harvard Classics. Lots of overlap between lists.

  Jared.

[David Grigg]

Nice list. Some suggested updates:

• Shirley by Charlotte Brontë is already in our catalogue
• Tom Jones by Fielding is already in our catalogue
• Morte d’Artur is already in our catalogue
• You’ve crossed off Hans Christian Anderson’s The Improvisatore, but as far as I know it’s not yet in our catalogue.

I wonder why on earth George Eliot’s Middlemarch wasn’t on that list, it’s her masterpiece.

A friend of mine keeps pushing me to do George Borrow’s Lavengro, so I might put a pencil tick against that as a future production for me.

[Alex Cabal]

There's certainly room to create more collections like those. Just about
any such list from a reputable periodical or publisher would be good to
have. I think a first step would be to create a spreadsheet with each
list, marking which items are PD, and whether or not SE already has them.

On 1/30/21 1:15 AM, John Reid wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> The recent enquiry here about "best of" collections on SE
> (https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/WBpzl0T1lAc) got me
> thinking about the 'discovery' experience on the site. Adding a handful
> more of these collections would be a simple way (requiring no new site
> features) to encourage discovery in the large and growing SE corpus. :)
> It's just adding a few lines to the content.opf of the included works
> (I'm perfectly happy to do all the PRs for these, too, if it's decided
> we want them).
>
> At the moment we have the Modern Library collection and the Pulitzer
> Prize collection, both very good. And of course, there's likely to be a
> lot of overlap between the various "100 best" lists out there which, on
> the one hand, makes including too many of these quite redundant; but on

> the other hand, many of the ebooks in the collection /are/ widely

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[John Reid]

Cool!

If we think there's room for this I'm happy to get started on it, and if anyone wants to help we can coordinate our work through this thread.

Since it seemed like the easiest to start with, I've made a start on a spreadsheet for the the Guardian 100 best English novels here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sZT-voz7gEEy0Tye_fDJUQ-aieGrXpBPORx52gb2AWo. That link allows comments (in case you spot an error), and if you'd like editing permissions just let me know.

From this list, there are already 42 works available through SE (plus Clarissa any minute now), another 7 that are eligible (excluding Clarissa), and of those, 5 have transcripts available on PG. All but one are already on the wanted list.

This seems to me to be a good list to start with, since it includes such a large set of highly sought-after works already. I'll start wubmitting PRs to include these works in a collection called "The Guardian's best 100 novels in English".

<meta id="collection-N" property="belongs-to-collection"> The Guardian's best 100 novels in English</meta>

        <meta property="collection-type" refines="#collection-N">set</meta>

        <meta property="group-position" refines="#collection-1">N</meta>

Quick question for future reference: can the SE website happily handle unordered collections? If the group-position is omitted, will the works still be processed into a collection correctly?

[John Reid]

PR for no. 1 in the list, Pilgrim's Progress, created: https://github.com/standardebooks/john-bunyan_the-pilgrims-progress/pull/1

Before I go crazy adding a ton of these PRs, I'll wait to see if you have any comments or want it done differently. :)

[Jared Updike]

I believe Andersen's The Improvisatore is autobiographical but shorter (18,000 w) than the HCA autobiography on PG (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7007/7007-h/7007-h.htm ) which is around 65,000 words, and when I checked and compared some scans, the longer one contained much or all of the material of the shorter, earlier work? It is a matter of translations and transcriptions and I think it would be better to use the longer biography. I'm not totally sure; it would require more research but interesting to note. HCA led a very interesting life for someone who "just wrote children's stories / poetry" (cf. also Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss).

  Jared.

[Vince]

To add to David’s updates: I have Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution in progress. Of course, it’s been in progress for a year-and-a-half. I’m going to get back to it eventually, I swear…

[Alex Cabal]

OK great. Note that the Guardian has a separate, older list from 2003:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction

So we should specify that the one below is from 2015. The 2003 one would
also be interesting to investigate. I image there are lots of overlaps.

On 1/31/21 12:28 AM, John Reid wrote:
> Cool!
>
> If we think there's room for this I'm happy to get started on it, and if
> anyone wants to help we can coordinate our work through this thread.
>
> Since it seemed like the easiest to start with, I've made a start on a
> spreadsheet for the the Guardian 100 best English novels
> here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sZT-voz7gEEy0Tye_fDJUQ-aieGrXpBPORx52gb2AWo.
> That link allows comments (in case you spot an error), and if you'd like
> editing permissions just let me know.
>
> From this list, there are already 42 works available through SE (plus

> /Clarissa/ any minute now), another 7 that are eligible (excluding
> /Clarissa/), and of those, 5 have transcripts available on PG. All but

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/76415cee-c412-4ac2-99a7-e53c2f92a945n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/76415cee-c412-4ac2-99a7-e53c2f92a945n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[John Reid]

Good point about the other list. The key difference between The Guardian's 2015 list and 2003 list is that the 2015 list focuses on English-language novels, and is much more complete for the SE collection. There's overlap, certainly, but perhaps room for both, which is why I originally specified 'in English' in the original collection name. The other list could be "The Guardian's best 100 novels in the world" or similar, by contrast. Of course, I think Le Monde's list is honestly a better world literature list, though we may struggle find PD translations of much of it. There was also a Guardian 2003 non-fiction list that I haven't looked at yet -- I figured get one Guardian list up, then perhaps BBC or some other source, before loading aallll the Guardian lists in at once, haha

So I'll update the collection PR to be "The Guardian’s best 100 novels in English (2015)"? (With rsquo, as you requested on the PR, of course.) Or do we think the 'in English' is distinction enough?

[Alex Cabal]

Let's add the 2015 as you suggest, because it could still be unclear at
a cursory glance.

Also make sure to indent your changes properly, I just noticed they
aren't indented to the same level. Thanks!

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/025b101f-5b4b-455e-8f89-b65503bbf5e9n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/025b101f-5b4b-455e-8f89-b65503bbf5e9n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[John Reid]

Yeah, I'd noticed the indentaton too, I forgot to `se clean` before committing! Fresh PR submitted with corrected (and correctly indented) changes: https://github.com/standardebooks/john-bunyan_the-pilgrims-progress/pull/2

[John Reid]

Alright, pending the acceptance of the last dozen or so PRs, the Guardian 2015 collection is done! Special mention and thanks to HaydenLang for pitching in a submitting about a third of the PRs for the collection. The collection is here, and once Alex gets a chance to accept the remaining PRs there'll be 48 SE editions in the set. I've also created a PR for the wanted ebooks page to add the information on the missing works there.

The Guardian 2015 collection: https://standardebooks.org/collections/the-guardians-best-100-novels-in-english-2015

Next up I'll probably prepare a spreadsheet for the BBC's 100 British novels list (https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels), though if I feel that it's got significant overlap with the Modern Library or Guardian 2015 lists, I'll move forward to another more interesting and unique list and come back to it later. Also, should anyone wish to use it as a template for working on similar collections, I've set up the spreadsheet used for the Guardian 2015 collection such that it should (in almost all cases) give you easy links to github etc, and make it quite easy to see at a glance what needs to be done.

[John Reid]

Tracking spreadsheet for BBC's 100 greatest British novels: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oKn05_Wfkao_vLcXs2IiyLJwxU144awRPyQassZTMfg

44 of the novels on the list are PD, 36 of which are on SE. As one would expect there's a fair amount of overlap with existing collections in the top 20 on the list, but there are interesting works here that don't overlap with the other collections on SE at all.

One small sticking point: the BBC grouped some series into a single entry, for example the Parade's End series by Ford Madox Ford, of which 1 and 2 are PD and in the collection, and book 3 will fall into the public domain next year. Will the SE website cope if both of these ebooks are listed at No. 57 in this collection, or should we just add the first book to the collection? (Or should we try adding both, and revert the commit if it breaks?)

[Alex Cabal]

There will probably be a lot of overlap on any best-of PD list. But, I
think it'd still be worth it to add more of these kinds of lists, if
only to demonstrate that many institutions can consider a single book to
be one of the best.

The site can handle things like Parade's End, the Modern Library list
did the same thing. (Parade's End is an interesting situation because in
1950, long after Ford had died, it was published as a single omnibus,
but some critics consider the 4th novel to be a big mistake and even
claim that Ford had regretted writing it. Graham Greene even omitted the
4th novel from his 1963 Parade's End edition. In any case unlike the
Forsyte Saga there is no new connecting material in the omnibus so
having the 4 novels as separate ebooks is a valid and I think better
choice.)

On 2/6/21 8:29 AM, John Reid wrote:
> Tracking spreadsheet for BBC's 100 greatest British
> novels: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oKn05_Wfkao_vLcXs2IiyLJwxU144awRPyQassZTMfg
>
> 44 of the novels on the list are PD, 36 of which are on SE. As one would
> expect there's a fair amount of overlap with existing collections in the
> top 20 on the list, but there are interesting works here that don't
> overlap with the other collections on SE at all.
>
> One small sticking point: the BBC grouped some series into a single

> entry, for example the /Parade's End
> <https://standardebooks.org/collections/parades-end>/ series by Ford

> Madox Ford, of which 1 and 2 are PD and in the collection, and book 3
> will fall into the public domain next year. Will the SE website cope if

> /both/ of these ebooks are listed at No. 57 in this collection, or

> should we just add the first book to the collection? (Or should we try
> adding both, and revert the commit if it breaks?)
>
> On Saturday, 6 February 2021 at 2:03:12 pm UTC+1 John Reid wrote:
>
> Alright, pending the acceptance of the last dozen or so PRs, the
> Guardian 2015 collection is done! Special mention and thanks to

> HaydenLang <https://github.com/HaydenLang> for pitching in a

> submitting about a third of the PRs for the collection. The
> collection is here

> <https://standardebooks.org/collections/the-guardians-best-100-novels-in-english-2015>,

> and once Alex gets a chance to accept the remaining PRs there'll be
> 48 SE editions in the set. I've also created a PR

> <https://github.com/standardebooks/web/pull/104> for the wanted

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8506d442-c756-4c8c-80b8-5c0fee3007aan%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8506d442-c756-4c8c-80b8-5c0fee3007aan%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[ACB Smith]

For what it's worth, The Guardian also put out a nonfiction list in 2003. I've compiled the titles, links, and PD date for it here, borrowing the formatting from above. If it's something that is deemed worth completing, I can add the metadata tab.

[Alex Cabal]

Any kind of list from an authority would be interesting to have, but
nonfiction is a special case because our collections policy explicitly
rejects lots of kinds of nonfiction. The first step would be listing all
of the PD-era works from that list, and then probably doing a general
genre classification before we can whether to include this list. If
there's only a few eligible items then it wouldn't make much sense.

On 2/6/21 7:02 PM, ACB Smith wrote:
> For what it's worth, The Guardian also put out a nonfiction list in
> 2003. I've compiled the titles, links, and PD date for it here

> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R6n9CM9e52X9ma9ztRVzG5jdA5VkfV3CD6y9a3-q770/edit?usp=sharing>,

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/84b3b75d-c606-48e4-a2b7-5d6e6e568f78n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/84b3b75d-c606-48e4-a2b7-5d6e6e568f78n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[ACB Smith]

Of the 100, only 41 are PD (and SE has 11 of those already). PG has most of the ones that SE doesn't already, but I was surprised to note that PG doesn't have some that I would have thought they would have (the Freud in particular).

I found the list interesting because it gave me a sense of what nonfiction written centuries ago is still considered relevant; even if it's not deemed useful as a collection, it might be a good jumping off point to add books to the Wanted list.

[Alex Cabal]

Guardian is a UK publication and UK PD laws are different from US PD
laws. If it's famous and PG doesn't have it then it's most likely not US-PD

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9daed01e-5023-440a-b62d-90749b89b4c3n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9daed01e-5023-440a-b62d-90749b89b4c3n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[ACB Smith]

I think I as a psychology layperson just misestimate how well known these works are. The Freud on the list was published in 1899 and translated in 1913, so that's not the issue.

[John Reid]

Alright, to get started with the BBC list I've submitted a test PR to add the collection metadata to Middlemarch. If that one looks good I'll proceed with the rest: https://github.com/standardebooks/george-eliot_middlemarch/pull/2

To distinguish this list from another list compiled by the BBC in 2003 (which I don't think we'll use) and their 2019 "100 Novels That Shaped Our World" (which we may use) I've given this collection the name "The BBC’s 100 greatest British novels (2015)"

Also, a quick apology, I should have been much clearer about the spreadsheets I've shared above! Please feel free to directly copy the spreadsheet (in Sheets, select File -> Make a copy). Much of the information is actually calculated and updated automatically as you fill in the data. I've updated the formatting and added a small number of comments to the spreadsheet to try to make this clearer. ACB Smith, if you'd like, you can simply copy-paste the Title, Author, Year, and URL columns into a copy of the above (use the Guardian one as a starting point) and you'll find the metadata and PD column fully populated.

[John Reid]

In fact, here is a blank template version of the spreadsheet for anyone who wishes to use it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MUM2L9h_NAWZOcZlycSNry7BzwzsvVaz15ATATwyKT8

Feel free to leave a comment on the template if you feel it can be improved. Comments can be see by me, obviously, and any other viewer.

[John Reid]

Quick spreadsheet for that 2019 BBC list mentioned above: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwCOKFjz0D4YGA9N-tKX5xso6RMqTSvpHmaZUzKM5mY

Of these hundred, only 11 are PD, of which 9 are on SE. One challenge for this list is that it was not numbered 1 to 100; I have ordered the list by publication year for simplicity.

[ACB Smith]

Ah, OK - I've redone that sheet here. I'll leave it to your judgement what to do with this and whether it's worth inclusion.

[John Reid]

It's an interesting list, that one. Probably worth adding to SE as a collection; 9 books already on SE (plus Innocents Abroad underway right now), plus another 25 with Gutenberg transcripts available. If we take Innocents Abroad off that list, and also remove Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects which wouldn't be accepted for SE due to the extensive illustrations, that leaves us with a pretty great list of 23 "wanted" books, only a handful of which are currently on the wanted list.

I'd certainly say that this is a valuable collection for SE in both currently available and aspirational terms. Of course, many of these would be challenging to produce, most of them would probably go in the 'advanced' section. Herodotus, Roman Empire, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, stuff like that.

[Alex Cabal]

A position number isn't required. You can just exclude the position from
the metadata if there isn't one, that's fine.

On 2/7/21 1:37 AM, John Reid wrote:
> Quick spreadsheet for that 2019 BBC list mentioned
> above: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwCOKFjz0D4YGA9N-tKX5xso6RMqTSvpHmaZUzKM5mY
>
> Of these hundred, only 11 are PD, of which 9 are on SE. One challenge
> for this list is that it was not numbered 1 to 100; I have ordered the
> list by publication year for simplicity.
>
> On Sunday, 7 February 2021 at 8:18:25 am UTC+1 John Reid wrote:
>
> In fact, here is a blank template version of the spreadsheet for
> anyone who wishes to use it:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MUM2L9h_NAWZOcZlycSNry7BzwzsvVaz15ATATwyKT8
>
> Feel free to leave a comment on the template if you feel it can be
> improved. Comments can be see by me, obviously, and any other viewer.
>
> On Sunday, 7 February 2021 at 7:51:21 am UTC+1 John Reid wrote:
>
> Alright, to get started with the BBC list I've submitted a test
> PR to add the collection metadata to Middlemarch. If that one
> looks good I'll proceed with the rest:
> https://github.com/standardebooks/george-eliot_middlemarch/pull/2
>
> To distinguish this list from another list compiled by the BBC
> in 2003 (which I don't think we'll use) and their 2019 "100
> Novels That Shaped Our World

> <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/494P41NCbVYHlY319VwGbxp/explore-the-list-of-100-novels-that-shaped-our-world>"

> (which we may use) I've given this collection the name "The
> BBC’s 100 greatest British novels (2015)"
>
> Also, a quick apology, I should have been much clearer about the

> spreadsheets I've shared above! Please feel free to /directly
> /copy the spreadsheet (in Sheets, select File -> Make a copy).

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/870daef2-0618-4cf5-97ab-e191ec6031c8n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/870daef2-0618-4cf5-97ab-e191ec6031c8n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Alex Cabal]

Yes, this would be interesting to categorize and add to the wanted list.

On 2/7/21 8:40 AM, John Reid wrote:
> It's an interesting list, that one. Probably worth adding to SE as a
> collection; 9 books already on SE (plus Innocents Abroad underway right
> now), plus another 25 with Gutenberg transcripts available. If we take

> Innocents Abroad off that list, and also remove /Lives of the Most
> Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects/ which wouldn't be

> accepted for SE due to the extensive illustrations, that leaves us with
> a pretty great list of 23 "wanted" books, only a handful of which are
> currently on the wanted list.
>
> I'd certainly say that this is a valuable collection for SE in both
> currently available and aspirational terms. Of course, many of these
> would be challenging to produce, most of them would probably go in the

> 'advanced' section. Herodotus, /Roman Empire/, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche,

> stuff like that.
>
> On Sunday, 7 February 2021 at 1:34:54 pm UTC+1 ACB Smith wrote:
>
> Ah, OK - I've redone that sheet here

> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EnGw-al0AzYC-sYmS5137zT2HwGsIUa-Jkrk-qugj5M/edit?usp=sharing>.

> I'll leave it to your judgement what to do with this and whether
> it's worth inclusion.
>
> On Sunday, February 7, 2021 at 7:37:46 AM UTC jwf...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Quick spreadsheet for that 2019 BBC list mentioned above:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwCOKFjz0D4YGA9N-tKX5xso6RMqTSvpHmaZUzKM5mY
>
> Of these hundred, only 11 are PD, of which 9 are on SE. One
> challenge for this list is that it was not numbered 1 to 100; I
> have ordered the list by publication year for simplicity.
>
> On Sunday, 7 February 2021 at 8:18:25 am UTC+1 John Reid wrote:
>
> In fact, here is a blank template version of the spreadsheet
> for anyone who wishes to use it:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MUM2L9h_NAWZOcZlycSNry7BzwzsvVaz15ATATwyKT8
>
> Feel free to leave a comment on the template if you feel it
> can be improved. Comments can be see by me, obviously, and
> any other viewer.
>
> On Sunday, 7 February 2021 at 7:51:21 am UTC+1 John Reid wrote:
>
> Alright, to get started with the BBC list I've submitted
> a test PR to add the collection metadata to Middlemarch.
> If that one looks good I'll proceed with the rest:
> https://github.com/standardebooks/george-eliot_middlemarch/pull/2
>
> To distinguish this list from another list compiled by
> the BBC in 2003 (which I don't think we'll use) and
> their 2019 "100 Novels That Shaped Our World

> <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/494P41NCbVYHlY319VwGbxp/explore-the-list-of-100-novels-that-shaped-our-world>"

> (which we may use) I've given this collection the name
> "The BBC’s 100 greatest British novels (2015)"
>
> Also, a quick apology, I should have been much clearer
> about the spreadsheets I've shared above! Please feel

> free to /directly /copy the spreadsheet (in Sheets,

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6ca9dee5-bcbf-4162-881d-d66d9081af0an%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6ca9dee5-bcbf-4162-881d-d66d9081af0an%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[John Reid]

BBC collection is now done, pending accepted PRs: https://standardebooks.org/collections/the-bbcs-100-greatest-british-novels-2015. Once again, special thanks to @HaydenLang for creating more than half of the PRs for the books in this collection, and doing so quickly and accurately!

9 works from the list which are eligible but not currently on SE are either in progress now (Clarissa) or on the Wanted list already. PR to update the wanted ebooks information has also been submitted.

Next up I was thinking it would be good to do the Guardian non-fiction list that @ACBSmith put together. In preparing to go ahead with it, though, I've got a handful of questions for discussion (and ultimately, for Alex's decision).

ABCSmith's list is drawn from The Guardian's "100 greatest non-fiction books" list of 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/14/100-greatest-non-fiction-books, a list that we discussed earlier when looking at the Guardian fiction list. On this list, as already discussed above, there are 9 books available on SE (plus Innocents Abroad forthcoming) and an additional 23 for our Wanted list, some already there. However there's also a different 2017 Guardian "100 best non-fiction books of all time" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/31/the-100-best-nonfiction-books-of-all-time-the-full-list). The two lists differ significantly, and the 2017 list has a much larger Public Domain selection, 54 books altogether. I've not yet done a full survey of how many of these are on SE already, but at first glance it's not many. I'll finish putting together a proper spreadsheet for this later today or tomorrow, time permitting, but here's the 2017 list in progress for anyone interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLSdLiTtgxOInidCoQwapIHxSZg_ObSuqX35RircFq8. I'll not take it personally if someone makes a copy (File -> Make a copy) and completes this, but please say so here so our work isn't needlessly dupicated.

So it seems we have The Guardian's 100 greatest non-fiction books (2011) and The Guardian's 100 best non-fiction books of all time (2017). The question is, do we add both of these collections, or choose one? Do we synthesise them into a single collection? (The 2011 is unordered and the 2017 is ordered in descending chronological, so they can be combined into a single unordered list without conflict). This question may need to wait until the spreadsheet for the 2017 collection is done.

[Alex Cabal]

We shouldn't combine them, I don't think that would make much sense. We
just have to see how many of the PD options on each list are the kind of
work we would produce. As I mentioned before, while we take almost all
fiction, the nonfiction we take is very limited.

On 2/8/21 2:34 AM, John Reid wrote:
> BBC collection is now done, pending accepted
> PRs: https://standardebooks.org/collections/the-bbcs-100-greatest-british-novels-2015.
> Once again, special thanks to @HaydenLang for creating more than half of
> the PRs for the books in this collection, and doing so quickly and
> accurately!
>
> 9 works from the list which are eligible but not currently on SE are
> either in progress now (Clarissa) or on the Wanted list already. PR to
> update the wanted ebooks information has also been submitted.
>
> Next up I was thinking it would be good to do the Guardian non-fiction
> list that @ACBSmith put together. In preparing to go ahead with it,
> though, I've got a handful of questions for discussion (and ultimately,
> for Alex's decision).
>
> ABCSmith's list is drawn from The Guardian's "100 greatest non-fiction
> books" list of
> 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/14/100-greatest-non-fiction-books,
> a list that we discussed earlier when looking at the Guardian fiction
> list. On this list, as already discussed above, there are 9 books

> available on SE (plus /Innocents Abroad/ forthcoming) and an additional

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9227115e-584e-4c74-9ed0-7f2310f91445n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9227115e-584e-4c74-9ed0-7f2310f91445n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[John Reid]

Okay, this took a while but I've made a survey of the Guardian 2017 non-fiction list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLSdLiTtgxOInidCoQwapIHxSZg_ObSuqX35RircFq8 (as usual, comments are enabled, feel free to make your own copy)

Please note that my comments hereafter are based on my very limited experience with SE and my understanding of the Do and Don't Accept guidelines. I'm perfectly happy to be contradicted on anything I'm saying. 😊

Brief summary: Of 56 works published before 1926;

* 7 are immediately excluded from the "Don't Accept" guidelines. Bibles, dictionaries and thesauruses (not explicitly on the don't accept list, but I assumed), works like "A Modest Proposal" and "Areopagatica" that are too short to stand alone and unlikely to be collected.

* 11 are already on SE in some form or other, either standalone or in collections

* Of the remaining 33 works in the list, 31 have existing Gutenberg editions. Not all of these are automatically good for SE, but 4 are already on the Wanted list.

* The remaining 2 works without Gutenberg editions are The History of the World by Walter Raleigh which, I mean, maybe one day; and The First Folio Shakespeare collection which we're unlikely to anthologise.

So, that's 11 existing and up to 31 wanted from this list. I've added a column to the linked spreadsheet with some brief comments about each line, using my (inexperienced) judgement. Please don't mistake any of my comments to be definitive or an assertion of authority.

As an overall comment, it's very clear that the 2017 list is a critic's list of influential works, not (in my opinion) a list that's actualy intended to guide a curious reader. It's very heavy on social commentary, political theory, natural philosophy, and biography. That said, there's absolutely some great stuff there that deserves a place on the SE shelves. It's going to be a matter of cherry-picking, though, and that perhaps should be done by someone with much more experience with SE non-fiction productions. :)

Meanwhile, unrelated to that:

I've thrown together a sheet for the Telegraphs's greatest villains in literature list, which is shorter, simpler, and a bit of fun for discovery and expansion of the SE catalogue.

List URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/greatest-villains-literature/ (warning, clickbait format)

Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z3KbjTvmQDb9LPvE8ZkcuhWN5F1o_IyFHmIwz_PX1ow

If there's no objections (Alex?), while we decide on the first non-fiction list to proceed with, I might go ahead with that one as it won't take long.

[Alex Cabal]

Great work, thanks. Glancing through these, there's more than a few that
I think we would reject. Specifically we're not interested in dated
histories or biographies unless they're very notable. Gaskell's Life of
Bronte, or The History of the World, for example we would probably
reject. The American Language and The Natural History and Antiquities of
Selborne are also probably too far in the realm of dated science to be
of interest for SE.

For some reason I can't sort these by the SE column in the sheet, when I
do it just empties the column contents. Can you sort these so that we
group together all the works SE doesn't yet have?

On 2/9/21 1:50 AM, John Reid wrote:
> Okay, this took a while but I've made a survey of the Guardian 2017
> non-fiction
> list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLSdLiTtgxOInidCoQwapIHxSZg_ObSuqX35RircFq8
> (as usual, comments are enabled, feel free to make your own copy)
>

> Please note that my comments hereafter are based on my /very/ limited

> experience with SE and my understanding of the Do and Don't Accept
> guidelines. I'm perfectly happy to be contradicted on anything I'm
> saying. 😊
>
> Brief summary: Of 56 works published before 1926;
>
> * 7 are immediately excluded from the "Don't Accept" guidelines. Bibles,
> dictionaries and thesauruses (not explicitly on the don't accept list,
> but I assumed), works like "A Modest Proposal" and "Areopagatica" that
> are too short to stand alone and unlikely to be collected.
> * 11 are already on SE in some form or other, either standalone or in
> collections
> * Of the remaining 33 works in the list, 31 have existing Gutenberg
> editions. Not all of these are automatically good for SE, but 4 are
> already on the Wanted list.

> * The remaining 2 works without Gutenberg editions are /The History of
> the World/ by Walter Raleigh which, I mean, maybe one day; and /The
> First Folio/ Shakespeare collection which we're unlikely to anthologise.

>
> So, that's 11 existing and up to 31 wanted from this list. I've added a
> column to the linked spreadsheet with some brief comments about each
> line, using my (inexperienced) judgement. Please don't mistake any of my
> comments to be definitive or an assertion of authority.
>
> As an overall comment, it's very clear that the 2017 list is a

> /critic's/ list of influential works, not (in my opinion) a list that's

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/bec09ebe-b781-4367-9985-9438d64664e5n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/bec09ebe-b781-4367-9985-9438d64664e5n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[John Reid]

Ah, I had it set up for filtering but sorting didn't occur to me :) I've fixed the cause of the sorting issue, and marked those titles you mentioned. Make another copy now and you can sort as much as you like: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLSdLiTtgxOInidCoQwapIHxSZg_ObSuqX35RircFq8

[John Reid]

Test PR for Greatest Villains created for Jungle Book: https://github.com/standardebooks/rudyard-kipling_the-jungle-book/pull/2. If that's accepted I'll pop in the other 17 books in this small collection.

For reference, the sheet for this collection: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z3KbjTvmQDb9LPvE8ZkcuhWN5F1o_IyFHmIwz_PX1ow

[John Reid]

The Telegraph's Gratest Villains in Literature collection has all of its PRs created and pending. Collection page: https://standardebooks.org/collections/the-telegraphs-greatest-villains-in-literature

I'm preparing an update to the wanted books list now, and I have a few questions.

1) A Tale of Samuel Whiskers, by Beatrix Potter. This is an illustration-heavy book, but we already have similarly illustrated childrens books (e.g., Just So Stories, Alice books, etc). Would Samuel Whiskers be a valuable addition to the wanted books? If so, in the Moderately Difficult section, or Advanced?

2) The Revengers Tragedy. Originally published anonymously in 1607, then widely attributed to Cyril Tourneur, but latterly generally attributed to Thomas Middleton. No Gutenberg, but unformatted wikisource and 1875 page scans (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Revenger%27s_Tragedy, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100643770). Include this as Advanced? If so, attributed to what authorship?

3) The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest by Tirso de Molina: I can find scans of three PD translations on HathiTrust, but there are no transcriptions available anywhere that I can find. Someone would need to research which translation to use, and either open a PGDP project or do the transcription themselves. This seems to me to be in grey area between Advanced and not wanted. Include in list?

[B Keith]

2) The Revengers Tragedy. Originally published anonymously in 1607, then widely attributed to Cyril Tourneur, but latterly generally attributed to Thomas Middleton. No Gutenberg, but unformatted wikisource and 1875 page scans (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Revenger%27s_Tragedy, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100643770). Include this as Advanced? If so, attributed to what authorship?

The Revengers Tragedy is pretty solidly considered Middleton these days. Its on my list of possible To-Dos but the transcription would be a nightmare.

B

_________

Guadeamus igitur iuvenes dum sumus

[Alex Cabal]

On 2/12/21 10:51 AM, John Reid wrote:
> 1) A Tale of Samuel Whiskers, by Beatrix Potter. This is an
> illustration-heavy book, but we already have similarly illustrated
> childrens books (e.g., Just So Stories, Alice books, etc). Would Samuel
> Whiskers be a valuable addition to the wanted books? If so, in the
> Moderately Difficult section, or Advanced?

This is mostly illustrations, a very low-grade-level kids book. I don't
think we'd accept this.

> 2) The Revengers Tragedy. Originally published anonymously in 1607, then
> widely attributed to Cyril Tourneur, but latterly generally attributed
> to Thomas Middleton. No Gutenberg, but unformatted wikisource and 1875
> page scans (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Revenger%27s_Tragedy,
> https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100643770). Include this as
> Advanced? If so, attributed to what authorship?

Sure, any production requiring transcription is advanced by default. You
can do as Bruce suggests.

> 3) The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest by Tirso de Molina: I
> can find scans of three PD translations on HathiTrust, but there are no
> transcriptions available anywhere that I can find. Someone would need to
> research which translation to use, and either open a PGDP project or do
> the transcription themselves. This seems to me to be in grey area
> between Advanced and not wanted. Include in list?

Advanced. For now include links to each of the translations you found
because the eventual producer will have to decide which one to work on.

[John Reid]

Shall do! Thanks to you both.

[Weijia Cheng]

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2018/100-must-read-classic-books.html <- This Penguin list seems like it might be a good one at first glance?

[Alex Cabal]

This one is "as chosen by our readers" and I don't think those kinds of
lists are worthwhile in general. And it includes work from 1992 as "classic"

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[John Reid]

I've also found that where an authority has a curated list vs "chosen by our readers" lists, the reader-chosen lists tend to be really samey, and contain far fewer PD works that we can actually work with. That said, publishers of classics are a clever place to look for good collections. The Modern Library list, the first such collection that SE added, is such a list. They are sometimes criticised as being more interested in promoting sales than promoting literature, but that still makes them valuable for our purposes, in opening new discovery pathways and user journeys on the site.

Penguin also has this, 100 Essential Penguis Classics: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/essential-penguin-classics. It's not so much a "list", though, as an online storefront catalogue, and will need someone to take the time to turn it into a spreadsheet. I'm expecting to have less spare time in the next week-ish, so I'll leave that to someone else if they're interested. (Please speak up if you decide to do this, though, so that others don't needlessly duplicate the effort.)

Book collection template: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MUM2L9h_NAWZOcZlycSNry7BzwzsvVaz15ATATwyKT8/edit#gid=414432487. This template has been improved since last time I shared the link; it now correctly parses more repository URLs, is sort-friendly, and publication year is optional if an SE link is present. Please continue to make suggestions if you find problems or improvements.

Here's some lists I think it's worthwhile considering, if we can find a good authority or someone wants to put one together for ourselves:

* Works by Black authors (Black History Month!)

* Standard Ebooks on Broadway (e.g., we have Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Oliver Twist, The Wizard of Oz, etc.) I made a quick start on this off the top of my head which anyone's welcome to pick up and take over (please say so), https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zU2YXQ6INY4A4IAvTmIol6Kn5LoDG437t2dIMRFMRm4/edit?usp=sharing. This Wikipedia category may be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Musicals_based_on_novels

* Banned Books. There's Ann Haight's famous banned books catalogue https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001167010, but that includes a looooot of stuff we'd never handle so it would take some effort to go from catalogue to SE collection. There's already a Gutenberg bookshelf that could be easier to work with than the original catalogue: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/336. The American Library association also maintains (maintained?) a list of banned books which should be at https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks, but their website seems to be pretty badly broken right now. Google's cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dLFNxOVY1v0J:www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=cz, Gutenberg's bookshelf: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dLFNxOVY1v0J:www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=cz

There's also the non-fiction lists that were discussed earlier in this thread. I've made a copy of ACB Smith's sheet of the Guardina 2011 non-fiction list (thanks again for putting that together) to incorporate the template improvements here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-7dibMKx6Aps8cH7nzjCbdubPISnRwC3EhfIViqE4Fs/edit?usp=sharing. My feeling is that this Guardian 2011 non-fiction list is a better choice for us than the Guardian 2017 non-fiction list (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLSdLiTtgxOInidCoQwapIHxSZg_ObSuqX35RircFq8/edit?usp=sharing). Once we (Alex?) decide on one of those we can get started on that list too.

[ACB Smith]

I'm starting on the list of Penguin Classics, which you can see here. I'm not sure I'll have the time to finish it in the next couple days, so if someone else has the time to take up the torch, just request editing permission.

[Weijia Cheng]

> Works by Black authors (Black History Month!)

I tried to find an external list and it was pretty hard to find anything that fits our time period. Unfortunately (and for reasons that should probably be obvious) a lot of classic Black fiction was only published in the 1940s and onwards. This seemed like a fairly interesting list from Penguin and I went ahead and converted it: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/african-american-fiction-classics

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tdKaevPsyq4fNh_uJLwcL4ePKSM_1sFEXV7RyH_wUoY/edit?usp=sharing

Unfortunately, what i find is that most of these books are not in PD, and of the ones that are (3) we have a grand total of one. So this list will probably not be very useful unless we produce the remaining two at least, and then the next book on this list doesn't come into play until (probably) 1925, which is a long time to wait. It might be more fruitful just to make our own list here.

[ACB Smith]

I've got the Penguin Classics list together here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11NezzGghkmCE6e1v3EOOvXvyJlM5fSTcSSLxowDmADo/edit#gid=0

We already have 38 of them, with at least 2 more currently in progress, and an additional 30 in PD. We may run into issues where the original is PD but the translation isn't, though.

[Alex Cabal]

I don't think we want the Penguin Classics list for the reason you stated: it's not a list of best 100 novels, it's a list of best 100 Penguin Classics. Those are two very different things.

I also don't want to go down the rabbit hole of having 100 lists for everything like PG's bookshelves. I think lists are only interesting to the extent that there's some editorial authority out there with a reputation, that has used their educated opinion to create a fixed list. Otherwise anyone can make up a list for any reason and we'll be stuck keeping it updated in perpetuity. That's the difference between "Harold Bloom's 25 Best Novels" and "Bob's List of Novels Written By People With Only One Eye". One is interesting and a one-time shot, the other is just a factual list without interesting insight, that requires perpetual maintenance.

>*looooot* of stuff we'd never handle so it would take some effort to go

[Weijia Cheng]

Alright, I have an idea: how about a collection of Black literature based on the index of the Norton Anthology of African American literature? https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393911558/about-the-book/table-of-contents

It's very comprehensive, and looking at the PD era I spy many books we already have (and others we'd probably like to add). Alex, do you think it would be a good idea to make a collection based off of that?

[Weijia Cheng]

The collection would be named "Works cited in the Norton Anthology of African American Literature"

[Alex Cabal]

Creating lists based on identity is just another name for a factual list. I don't think those are interesting no matter the fact being cataloged and it opens the floodgates for any kind of factual list to have to be maintained by us.

The Norton anothologies in any case are meant as a broad overview of a period of literature, not a fixed best-of list. An academic overview of a subject needen't include exclusively the "best" of the subject, and can change over time with academic fashion; and each edition of their anthologies can have different selections depending on who edited it.

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, it's your call--I'll just keep the anthology in mind for myself when I think about books to produce in the future :)

[Vince]

It might be a good list to find books to suggest for the wanted list, just not for using in the “collection” metadata on the books themselves.

[Weijia Cheng]

Right, that was my line of thinking, Vince. I might comb through it and see what might be some good inclusions, and make a PR for that.

[John Reid]

Alex, what's your feeling about just doing our own curated collections for a small number of carefully selected things like, say, Black authors, etc? Rather than trying to find just the right external authority or just the right best-of list, we can simply put applicable works together in an unnumbered series and be our own authority. No tracking and maintaning lists from external sources, when a new book is announced and published, any of the volunteers who are paying attention can submit the PR to include it in the relevant collection, if the producer has not thought of it. And we still get the benefit of having an improved discovery experience on the site, as well as some impetus in expanding the collection in ways that are of interest to us and to readers. So long as we don't get carried away in creating a lot of these collections, it wouldn't be too burdensome, I think.

[Alex Cabal]

As I said upthread I don't think identity-based collections are
interesting. But besides that, letting one in will open the door for
more, and in the long run nobody will maintain them except for me. Then
we'll get in a situation where collections exist but are unmaintained
and incomplete, which is a bad experience for everyone.

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[John Reid]

Ah, gotcha, I understand now what you meant by 'based on identity'. Thanks for the clarification! :)