[Next Project] The Case with Nine Solutions by JJ Connington

[mauka218lani]

Greetings,

I would like to try my hand at JJ Connington's The Case with Nine Solutions. It is on the wanted books list.

Scans are on HathiTrust  scans

Wikipedia has an image of the first American edition dustjacket  dustjacket

But, that semi cartoonish image does not really seem consistent with the oil painting approach. Best to look elsewhere for a cover image?

In the text I see numbered lists, tables, math, chemistry and secret code blocks. Anything else to watch out for?

Also, I see "8.5 a.m." as the time a telegram was handed in. Would that be "8:05 a.m."?

What do you think? Try this or pick another?

Thank you

[Alex Cabal]

OK! Please send a link to your repo once you start.

On 1/14/26 7:19 PM, 'mauka218lani' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I would like to try my hand at JJ Connington's The Case with Nine
> Solutions. It is on the wanted books list.
>

> Scans are on HathiTrust scans <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?
> id=yul.12600226_000_00&seq=1>

>
> Wikipedia has an image of the first American edition dustjacket

> dustjacket <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_with_Nine_Solutions>

> But, that semi cartoonish image does not really seem consistent with the
> oil painting approach. Best to look elsewhere for a cover image?
>
> In the text I see numbered lists, tables, math, chemistry and secret
> code blocks. Anything else to watch out for?
>
> Also, I see "8.5 a.m." as the time a telegram was handed in. Would that
> be "8:05 a.m."?
>
> What do you think? Try this or pick another?
>
> Thank you
>

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> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[mauka218lani]

Thank you. This is the repo:   github

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Weijia will manage with David reviewing.

On 1/15/26 1:35 PM, 'mauka218lani' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> Thank you. This is the repo: github <https://github.com/mauka218lani/j-
> j-connington_the-case-with-nine-solutions.git>

>
> On Thursday, January 15, 2026 at 7:11:12 AM UTC-10 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK! Please send a link to your repo once you start.
>
> On 1/14/26 7:19 PM, 'mauka218lani' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I would like to try my hand at JJ Connington's The Case with Nine
> > Solutions. It is on the wanted books list.
> >
> > Scans are on HathiTrust scans <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/

> pt <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt>?

> > id=yul.12600226_000_00&seq=1>
> >
> > Wikipedia has an image of the first American edition dustjacket
> > dustjacket <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

> The_Case_with_Nine_Solutions <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

> The_Case_with_Nine_Solutions>>
> > But, that semi cartoonish image does not really seem consistent
> with the
> > oil painting approach. Best to look elsewhere for a cover image?
> >
> > In the text I see numbered lists, tables, math, chemistry and secret
> > code blocks. Anything else to watch out for?
> >
> > Also, I see "8.5 a.m." as the time a telegram was handed in.
> Would that
> > be "8:05 a.m."?
> >
> > What do you think? Try this or pick another?
> >
> > Thank you
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> > Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
> send
> > an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com
> > <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.
> > To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/>
> > standardebooks/31a944c7-d422-4153-9d5b-
> c6b8bafee25en%40googlegroups.com <http://40googlegroups.com>
> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/31a944c7-
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> > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
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> standardebooks/39901e21-b586-431b-9c98-34e93850d09fn%40googlegroups.com
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> b586-431b-9c98-34e93850d09fn%40googlegroups.com?
> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, noted!

[Weijia Cheng]

1. The dust jacket doesn't fit our style. I would look for something else.

2. Review https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/5-general-xhtml-and-css-patterns#5.7, https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/8-typography#8.8, and https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/8-typography#8.12.

3. For the 8.5 a.m., I would have guessed that should be read as 8:50? Is there something in the context that suggests one way or another?

[Vince]

It’s 8.05. That’s a Britishism; they decided they could drop the leading zeroes on time just like we do on regular numbers. I see it quite often, all the way through at least mid-20th century (Churchill uses that shorthand in his WWII history, e.g.).

On Jan 15, 2026, at 3:23 PM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

…

[mauka218lani]

Thank you. 

I plan to treat the X in the scan exerpt below as grapheme. It is not correct that se semanticate tagged the X as roman numeral. Please let me know if grapheme is not correct.

[Weijia Cheng]

Leave it unsemanticated. "X" is functioning as a name here. See https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/8-typography#8.2.8.3

[mauka218lani]

Thank you.

In this excerpt from the scan, the speaker is paraphasing Swift:

Se semanticate has marked tas follows:

‘Night, dear <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism z3998:name-title">M.D.</abbr> Love Pdfr.’

Seems odd to mark one abbr and not the other. What do you recommend?

Thanks

[Weijia Cheng]

Well, that is why you also need to manually add some semantics. Semanticate can't catch every possible abbreviation. It only covers the most common ones.

[mauka218lani]

Thank you.

Below is excerpt from the scans, and Project Gutenberg has the same punctuation. Should the exclamation poiont be changed to question mark?

[Weijia Cheng]

That seems like it could be a printer's typo given the context. You can change it to a quotation mark in an editorial commit.

[mauka218lani]

Thanks.

Sorry to bother you with this, but I can't seem to find guidance for an italicized abbreviation. The difference in these two abbreviations is a clue to the case, which is probably why the author has them in italics. Below is the scan:

I assume the markup for this would involve some combination of abbr and either i or em.

Something like any of these?

<abbr><em>gr.</em></abbr>

<abbr><i>gr.</i></abbr>

<em><abbr>gr.</abbr></em>

Please advise which to use in what order, or if there is another approach that's more appropriate. Thank you for your time.

[Weijia Cheng]

<em><abbr>gr.</abbr></em> is correct.

[mauka218lani]

Thank you.

I am puzzled how to mark what may be french slang or may be a joke. As seen in scan excerpt below, character says "nom-de-kid" to imply a pseudonym. Perhaps this is like "nom-de-net" for an internet handle?

Project Gutenberg has marked this:   <i lang="fr">nom-de-kid</i>

What do you recommend? Thanks

[Weijia Cheng]

If you think that it is intended to be read as a French phrase (even if it isn't actual French) then you can mark it as xml:lang="fr"