[Next Project] Hamilton by Hamlin & Arliss

[mauka218lani]

Greetings,

Looking for a challenge. Considering Hamilton by Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss (patron selection) as my next project. This is my first attempt at something like this!

The Wanted Books list links to wikisource

Is this the intended transcription source? Do not see this play on PG or FP. I've downloaded the epub and confirmed an earlier post to this forum that wikisource transcriptions have lots extra to be removed. But I also downloaded the plain text and rtf formats. At this point I think preparation for the initial commit is manageable.

Could you direct me to guidance using se create-draft on unusual source? A quick look at the py suggests it can work. In case I cannot get se create-draft to work, is it reasonable to think the preferred repo name would be something like this?

"mary-p-hamlin_george-arliss_hamilton"

Internet Archive scans are here

SEMoS section 7.6 and how-to guide on drama will be vital resources. Could you suggest good example repos that I could use as references? How about Shakespeare and/or Shaw repos with multiple acts?

Comedy of Errors

Candida

Looks like the cover will be easy. Simply select a favorite among the John Trumbull portraits.

Any other advice for first drama project most welcome. Thanks

[Emma Sweeney]

For Wikisource, I recommend downloading the HTML file.

Since you are using Wikisource, create the repository without a source (Step 5, "2. Without the --pg-id option"). You can copy and paste the HTML file you just downloaded into the repository. 

I also recommend looking at Shaw rather than Shakespeare for prose drama. Shakespeare can be quite confusing. See here for your act file formatting.

The only unusual feature I see in this play is that it has stage directions in shorthand. Other than that, this should be somewhat easy (for a drama production). 

Emma

[Alex Cabal]

Sure, please send a link to your repo once you start.

For non PG, non Faded Page drafts, you would just run it without those
options and copy and paste the source into the repo yourself. Nothing
special about that.

On 4/17/26 5:59 PM, 'mauka218lani' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Looking for a challenge. Considering Hamilton by Mary P. Hamlin and
> George Arliss (patron selection) as my next project. This is my first
> attempt at something like this!
>

> The Wanted Books list links to wikisource <https://en.wikisource.org/
> wiki/Hamilton_(play)>

> Is this the intended transcription source? Do not see this play on PG or
> FP. I've downloaded the epub and confirmed an earlier post to this forum
> that wikisource transcriptions have lots extra to be removed. But I also
> downloaded the plain text and rtf formats. At this point I think
> preparation for the initial commit is manageable.
>
> Could you direct me to guidance using se create-draft on unusual source?
> A quick look at the py suggests it can work. In case I cannot get se
> create-draft to work, is it reasonable to think the preferred repo name
> would be something like this?
> "mary-p-hamlin_george-arliss_hamilton"
>

> Internet Archive scans are here <https://archive.org/details/
> hamiltonplayinfo00haml>

>
> SEMoS section 7.6 and how-to guide on drama will be vital resources.
> Could you suggest good example repos that I could use as references? How
> about Shakespeare and/or Shaw repos with multiple acts?

> Comedy of Errors <https://github.com/standardebooks/william-
> shakespeare_the-comedy-of-errors>
> Candida <https://github.com/standardebooks/george-bernard-shaw_candida>

>
> Looks like the cover will be easy. Simply select a favorite among the
> John Trumbull portraits.
>
> Any other advice for first drama project most welcome. Thanks
>
>
>

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[mauka218lani]

Thank you both for helping me get started.

This is the repo: Hamilton repo

Perhaps it will be a bit longer than usual until my initial commit.

Thanks again

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Robin will manage with Weijia reviewing.

On 4/18/26 4:35 PM, 'mauka218lani' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> Thank you both for helping me get started.

> This is the repo: Hamilton repo <https://github.com/mauka218lani/mary-p-
> hamlin_george-arliss_hamilton.git>

> Perhaps it will be a bit longer than usual until my initial commit.
> Thanks again
>
> On Friday, April 17, 2026 at 6:13:57 PM UTC-10 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Sure, please send a link to your repo once you start.
>
> For non PG, non Faded Page drafts, you would just run it without those
> options and copy and paste the source into the repo yourself. Nothing
> special about that.
>
> On 4/17/26 5:59 PM, 'mauka218lani' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Looking for a challenge. Considering Hamilton by Mary P. Hamlin and
> > George Arliss (patron selection) as my next project. This is my
> first
> > attempt at something like this!
> >
> > The Wanted Books list links to wikisource <https://

> en.wikisource.org/ <https://en.wikisource.org/>

> shaw_candida <https://github.com/standardebooks/george-bernard-

> shaw_candida>>
> >
> > Looks like the cover will be easy. Simply select a favorite among
> the
> > John Trumbull portraits.
> >
> > Any other advice for first drama project most welcome. Thanks
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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/6108ec1e-7d40-451d-97f3-
> b36bcc9ee8a6n%40googlegroups.com <http://40googlegroups.com>
> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ <https://groups.google.com/d/
> msgid/>
> > standardebooks/6108ec1e-7d40-451d-97f3-
> b36bcc9ee8a6n%40googlegroups.com <http://40googlegroups.com>?
> > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
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> standardebooks/27c40c96-91b9-4ddd-b5e9-5a46e3056da2n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/27c40c96-91b9-4ddd-
> b5e9-5a46e3056da2n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Asher Smith]

You seem to have done some additional conversion to the raw html file that I don't think I would recommend - it looks like it has been processed through Calibre, which has added a whole bunch of different classes to different elements. I also don't know that cleaning at that stage is actually useful for drama: my usual workflow for building the base drama formatting is to find whatever patterns exist in the source html and then use regex search to replace it with the SE formatting. In the case of the original WikiSource, it seems that they're using a <p> element to contain both the persona and the dialogue, so you could probably directly replace them with <tr> elements. You can delete all of the pagenum elements by searching for  <span class="pagenum ws-pagenum".*</span></span>  and deleting all the ones that come up. You can replace all the personas by searching for  <span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant:small-caps;">Jefferson.</span>  and replacing it with  <td epub:type="z3998:persona">Jefferson</td>  and if you're using VSCode, you can use capture groups to replace all the different characters at once rather than needing to go one at a time.

Don't worry about making the code look pretty when you're doing the initial work on that - you will run se clean later, and that will deal with putting everything on its own lines and making it nicely indented. Just copy/paste an act header from another play and then you can use file errors (either by a html error finding plugin in your text editor or by opening the page in a web browser and seeing what line it fails at) to track down where there are remnants of the previous formatting.

[mauka218lani]

Aha! I should have guessed that's what they did over at Wikisource. I have been puzzling over why all the downloads except txt and rtf were chock full of calibre classes.

Thanks so much for all the great advice, tips and tricks! I greatly appreciate the advice on my first drama project.

[Asher Smith]

That “R.” there isn’t an abbreviated persona marking, it’s a stage direction abbreviation, meaning stage right. It’s covered in SEMoS 7.6.6.3 - you mark it as that sort of abbreviation, and add that to the local.css file.

[mauka218lani]

Sorry for the delete, trying to edit the code block. Thanks for the fast response! Here is the tweaked post.

I'm following Asher's advice looking for patterns in the source. I've run across this bit in Act I (from the scans).

To see the whole page of this scan:   scan

Wikisource has taken a shortcut with Persona marking in the stage direction after the dialog, doing this (combining Tallyrand and Reynolds in one smallcaps tag):

```
<div class="wst-hanging-indent">[<span class="smallcaps1">Schuyler</span><i class="calibre14">ignores him and turns back to</i><span class="smallcaps1">Tallyrand. Reynolds</span> goes up to behind table <span class="smallcaps1">r.</span><i class="calibre14">, laughing.</i></div>
```

Please advise how to correctly represent two personae in separate sentences. Thank you

[mauka218lani]

Not my day. Here is the section of the scan and link again

scan

[Vince]

The same way you would mark them in one sentence; see SEMoS 7.6.6.2.

[Asher Smith]

You tag each persona individually: a period or comma following a tag should never be part of the persona tag, and lint will kick up errors about it.

To answer the broader question, you needn’t worry about replicating the format of the source transcription, and the foibles of how they’ve formatted something do not matter. With Drama formatting, you’re also not visually replicating the scans, but instead semantically replicating them, putting them in the standard SE dramatic format. You should approach the question of what to do by asking what the manual says about how to treat something, rather than by trying to interpret what the transcriber has done. In this case, the transcription inexplicable jumps out of stage direction italics in the middle of the stage direction around the small caps, so you should be on the lookout for </i><span> combinations that indicate that it’s happening elsewhere.

Another small note: in your git commits, you don’t need to list what files you’re editing, because the commit shows which files have been changed.

[mauka218lani]

Thanks, I've clarified the git commit message. Sorry it was needlessly confusing.

Thanks also for the really helpful advice. Does this look correct?

 <td>
      <i epub:type="z3998:stage-direction"><b epub:type="z3998:persona">Schuyler</b> ignores him and turns back to <b epub:type="z3998:persona">Tallyrand</b>. <b epub:type="z3998:persona">Reynolds</b> goes up to behind table <abbr epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">R.</abbr>, laughing.</i>
 </td>

Reminder, here is the scan.

Thank you!

[Asher Smith]

That looks good to me.