[First Project] Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne

[David Shepherd]

Good Morning, 

Enjoyed reading SE offerings and decided the I would like to contribute. 

This is my first project.

I picked Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne from the "For your first production" section in https://standardebooks.org/contribute/wanted-ebooks 

Transcription Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3808

Scan Link: https://archive.org/details/WorksJulesVerne14Vern/page/iv/mode/2up

Please let me know if I can proceed.

Thanks

David

[Alex Cabal]

Great, that one would be a good start.

First word of chapter 1 is all-caps but that looks like a transcriber
mistake, because in the scans all first words are all-caps but the
transcriber removed all of them except for chapter 1. So, use <i>
because it's onomatopoeia. (All sounds should get <i>, there are a few
more in here like `rrr`).

The translator is `Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington`.

This will have collection metadata for `Voyages Extraordinaires`, and
since there is a sequel you will also add additional metadata for the
`Robur the Conqueror` series.

Make sure to read the Standard Ebooks Manual of Style before starting,
as you won't know what to fix if you haven't read the standards. In
particular, please closely review the semantics, high level patterns,
and typography sections:

https://standardebooks.org/manual

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/4-semantics

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/7-high-level-structural-patterns

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/8-typography

The step by step guide will take you from start to finish:

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producing-an-ebook-step-by-step

This page on common issues in older books may be useful:

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/common-issues-when-working-on-public-domain-ebooks

Please email often if you have any questions at all. Our standards are
well-established so there is probably already a standard for formatting
whatever problem you've encountered.

When you're ready, email back with a link to your Github repository so
that I can mark you as having started.

Have fun! :)

On 4/8/25 5:10 AM, David Shepherd wrote:
> Good Morning,
>
> Enjoyed reading SE offerings and decided the I would like to contribute.
>
> This is my first project.
>

> I picked _Robur the Conqueror_ <https://www.gutenberg.org/
> ebooks/3808> by Jules Verne from the "For your first production" section
> in https://standardebooks.org/contribute/wanted-ebooks <https://
> standardebooks.org/contribute/wanted-ebooks>
>
> Transcription Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3808 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3808>
> Scan Link: https://archive.org/details/WorksJulesVerne14Vern/page/iv/
> mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/WorksJulesVerne14Vern/page/iv/
> mode/2up>

>
> Please let me know if I can proceed.
>
> Thanks
>
> David
>

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> bae5-e0ff175a5475n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[David Shepherd]

Hi Alex

Thanks for the reply and guidance.

Had a read of the articles you mentioned and kindly linked.

I have started the process following both the technical step by step and ‘Hints and Tricks’ on the SE site.

Got as far as having done the 'se typogrify' at the moment.

I’m completely new to GitHub but think I have managed to set things up both locally and on the GitHub site. As regards the link to the GitHub site. Is the link you need the one that is produced when I click the green <> Code button and copy the URL to the clipboard?

Sorry for such a simple question but GitHub is proving to be the biggest challenge (so far anywyay)!

Thanks

David

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[David]

It should simply be:

    https://github.com/YOUR_USER_ID/jules-vernes_robur-the-conqueror_sampson-low-marston-searle-rivington

assuming you "initialized" with the publisher-as-translator, as Alex noted above.

Hope that helps!

David / Fife, UK

On Friday, 11 April 2025 at 10:28:04 UTC+1 g4sa... wrote:

Hi Alex

Thanks for the reply and guidance.

Had a read of the articles you mentioned and kindly linked.

I have started the process following both the technical step by step and ‘Hints and Tricks’ on the SE site.

Got as far as having done the 'se typogrify' at the moment.

I’m completely new to GitHub but think I have managed to set things up both locally and on the GitHub site. As regards the link to the GitHub site. Is the link you need the one that is produced when I click the green <> Code button and copy the URL to the clipboard?

Sorry for such a simple question but GitHub is proving to be the biggest challenge (so far anywyay)!

Thanks

David

> On 8 Apr 2025, at 16:42, Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Great, that one would be a good start.
>
> First word of chapter 1 is all-caps but that looks like a transcriber mistake, because in the scans all first words are all-caps but the transcriber removed all of them except for chapter 1. So, use <i> because it's onomatopoeia. (All sounds should get <i>, there are a few more in here like `rrr`).
>
> The translator is `Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington`.
>
> This will have collection metadata for `Voyages Extraordinaires`, and since there is a sequel you will also add additional metadata for the `Robur the Conqueror` series.

> . . .

[David Shepherd]

Thanks David

Here it is then:

Hopefully that’s OK

Thanks

David / Sheffield UK…there’s obviously going to be a lot of Davids here I guess 😉

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[Weijia Cheng]

Is your repo public? I don't think you made your repository visible to everyone.

[David Shepherd]

OK. Try again 

That should hopefully have sorted it.

Thanks

David / Sheffield UK

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/485d14e0-fcca-4beb-afcf-f5778e944bd8n%40googlegroups.com.

[Weijia Cheng]

Yep, it's visible now!

[Alex Cabal]

OK, David will manage this with Lukas reviewing.

[David Shepherd]

Thanks for the update.

Best wishes

David

Sent from David's iPhone

> On 12 Apr 2025, at 02:47, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:
>
> OK, David will manage this with Lukas reviewing.

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/d5391b39-e02b-4aaa-9ac2-02c9a6409f0b%40standardebooks.org.

[David Shepherd]

Have managed to get through several steps of the technical step-by-step guide.

I have run the

 se build-manifest .

se build-spine .

and they seem to have done the job successfully, looking at the content.opf  

However, I seem to have come up against a block in trying to generate the table of contents.

When I run the:

 se build-toc .  

command I get an error:

 'Couldn't find title in: chapter-1.xhtml

I have:

<head>
<title>I Mysterious Sounds</title>
<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
</head>
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
<section id="chapter-1" epub:type="chapter">
<h2> <span epub:type="z3998:roman">I</span><br/>

Mysterious Sounds</h2>

at the start of each of the chapter.xhtml files. Looking at another of the Verne books (An Antarctic Mystery) there seems to be a <hgroup>...</hgroup> tag for what I would guess would be a similar look to the text I am working on. 

I assume that I have an error somewhere. Struggling to work out the issue though. Any pointers would be helpful.

Thank you

David / Sheffield UK

[David]

Yes, there is an error - your chapter headings should be formatted like the third example in SEMoS 6.2.1.6.3 -

And your chapter 1 should have:

```

<hgroup>

<h2  epub:type="z3998:roman">I</h2>
<p epub:type="title">Mysterious Sounds</p>

</hgroup>

```

You also have an extra space after your `h2` tag, and no `spans` are needed. You can see in the `title` element the result your present form had when you ran `se build-title`.

You should fix all the chapter headings to conform to standard, then `se clean`, and then re-run `build-title`, `build-manifest`, `build-spine`, and `build-toc`. Hopefully that will get you the correct results.

[David Shepherd]

Thanks for the guidance.

I will get on with the guidance you have given.

I'll upload the commits as I do these tasks.

Really appreciate the quick response and support.

David / Sheffield UK

[David Shepherd]

Hi there. A reminder of my GitHub for this book.

Progress is slow due to work. Proofreading against dist.

Just finishing chapter XIV. The two prisoners - Prudent and Evans have dropped a short message in a snuff box.

The document was then extracted from the snuff-box, and to the general surprise, read as follows:
“Messrs. Prudent and Evans, president and secretary of the Weldon Institute, Philadelphia, have been carried off in the aeronef Albatross belonging to Robur the engineer.”
“Please inform our friends and acquaintances.”
“P. and P.E.”

The message is reproduced in the scans. I have looked through SEMoS but cannot decide how this should be formatted correctly. Especially the signatures - which are simply their initials. I think it should be a <blockquote> but cannot work out exactly how it would work.

The alternative I can see is to make the signature portion a <footer>.

What would be the best option?

Many thanks,

David

To refresh this thread my GitHub address is:

https://github.com/Sandman1961/jules-verne_robur-the-conqueror_sampson-low_marston_searle_rivington

[Vince]

David (Reimer) will answer your question, but in order for him to do so, please provide a link to the page in the scans where this occurs. That should be done whenever you’re asking about source content.

[David Shepherd]

Vince

Thanks for the help.

https://archive.org/details/WorksJulesVerne14Vern/page/86/mode/2up

is the link that is needed I believe.

Hopefully this works.

Kind regards,

David (Shepherd)

[David]

Thanks, David, for adding the link (and thanks, Vince, for the nudge). :)

This should appear in a blockquote with letter semantics:
https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.2/single-page#7.7

“P. and P.E.” should be in a footer, and the initials wrapped each in
their own abbreviations, both as signatures. Given the "and", I would
do it this way:

```
<footer role="presentation">
<p>“<span epub:type="z3998:sender z3998:signature"><abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">P.</abbr></span> and <span epub:type="z3998:sender z3998:signature"><abbr class="eoc" epub:type="z3998:personal-name">P. E.</abbr></span>”</p>
</footer>
```

Then there is the question of the quotation marks. These may be left
intact. My inclination would be to remove them, with that step in its
own [Editorial] commit. (I.e., add and commit manual semantics first,
*then*—if you do—remove quotes in separate commit, [Editorial].)

D.

On Tuesday, 1 July 2025 at 07:14:19 UTC+1 David Shepherd wrote:

Vince

Thanks for the help.

https://archive.org/details/WorksJulesVerne14Vern/page/86/mode/2up

is the link that is needed I believe.

Hopefully this works.

Kind regards,

David (Shepherd)

On Monday, 30 June 2025 at 23:52:06 UTC+1 Vince wrote:

David (Reimer) will answer your question, but in order for him to do so, please provide a link to the page in the scans where this occurs. That should be done whenever you’re asking about source content.

[David Shepherd]

Dear David

Many thanks for that helpful advice.

Changes made as per SEMoS and your guidance.

Committed to GitHub. Hopefully this is OK.

I’ll move on to proofreading the subsequent chapters. 

Would modifying the local CSS file be appropriate for the ‘Please inform our friends…’ as it doesn’t look quite right?

Best wishes

David

Scan link:

https://archive.org/details/WorksJulesVerne14Vern

Project Gutenberg Link (Transcription Link):

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3808

GitHub link:

https://github.com/Sandman1961/jules-verne_robur-the-conqueror_sampson-low_marston_searle_rivington

[David Reimer]

I don't see whatever you're seeing about the "Please inform..." line
(paragraph!), nor how CSS would make adjustments for it. I think it's
fine as it is.

But looking again, I think the "P." abbreviation isn't a "given-name",
is that right? (I don't know the book's characters!) But looking again
("Messers. Prudent and Evans...") suggests that first "P." is more
likely a surname, so not `z3998:given-name` for its abbr, but
`z3998:surname` (if my current surmise is correct!). You'll need to
verify, of course.

[David Shepherd]

Great. Thanks for your patience.
Hopefully all sorted now.

David

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