[Next Project] The Autobiography of Mark Twain

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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 6, 2021, 9:36:40 PM4/6/21
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I'm going to start on Mark Twain's Autobiography.

I've seen both the titles "Mark Twain's Autobiography" and "The Autobiography of Mark Twain." I should use "The Autobiography of Mark Twain," right?



Emma

Alex Cabal

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Apr 6, 2021, 9:37:53 PM4/6/21
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Yup, thanks!
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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 6, 2021, 9:53:15 PM4/6/21
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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 7, 2021, 8:34:40 AM4/7/21
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Some of the chapters are sectioned together (The Grant Dictations, etc.) while others stand alone. Should I try to recreate these sections or just have all the chapters on the same heading level and in separate files?


Emma

Alex Cabal

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Apr 7, 2021, 3:34:18 PM4/7/21
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You can section them. His "autobiography" is interesting in that much of
it was dictated and he purposefully wanted it to be a series of
fragments instead of a more orderly narrative. So editors have
rearranged and reorganized the sections repeatedly over time. Keeping
these sections is fine.
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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 13, 2021, 1:47:56 AM4/13/21
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Would this painting work for the cover? The first chapter is called "Tennessee Land" and describes the land bought by Mark Twain's father.
cover.jpg

Fun fact: Mark Twain mentions that Fentress County, Tennessee was "a natural wine district." Today, it is one of Tennessee's counties that still has prohibition laws.

Emma

Alex Cabal

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Apr 13, 2021, 11:51:15 AM4/13/21
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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 17, 2021, 3:15:00 PM4/17/21
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Ok, I'm finishing up this production, and I think I've preserved the intended structure. There were some things that had to be changed in order to conform with SE standards or for readers to easily find everything:
  • Dictation and writing dates were moved below the title. I made sure to retain the italics and right-alignment.
  • Chapters are grouped together, but some are sectioned by dates that don't look anything like titles. Since some dates are continued in different groupings I turned these into titles. They will not retain the original formatting.
  • Since the files are made up of chapters and groups of chapters/notes/dates I just applied the chapter semantics to all second <section> levels in the files (the first level for volume semantics).
  • The first section of Volume 2 didn't have a title in the PG transcription, but the page scans have "Mark Twain" in huge letters above it. I decided to just file it as "Mark Twain" and add a title.
  • "The Character of Man" is only divided by dates that look nothing like titles (as they are italicized and right-aligned) but have bridgeheads. These were turned into titles.
  • I looked at multiple editions to try and get a feel for how this beast should be structured, but it looks like very few even tried to attempt such a feat. If an attempt was made, it was very hard to find anything. The ToC does look a bit chaotic, but at least you can find everything and jump between sections.

Emma

Alex Cabal

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Apr 18, 2021, 9:31:18 PM4/18/21
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OK, is this ready for review? If it is then I'll do that, but I need a
day or two.

On 4/17/21 2:15 PM, Emma Sweeney wrote:
> Ok, I'm finishing up this production, and I think I've preserved the
> intended structure. There were some things that had to be changed in
> order to conform with SE standards or for readers to easily find everything:
>
> * Dictation and writing dates were moved below the title. I made sure
> to retain the italics and right-alignment.
> * Chapters are grouped together, but some are sectioned by dates that
> don't look anything like titles. Since some dates are continued in
> different groupings I turned these into titles. They will not retain
> the original formatting.
> * Since the files are made up of chapters and groups of
> chapters/notes/dates I just applied the chapter semantics to all
> second <section> levels in the files (the first level for volume
> semantics).
> * The first section of Volume 2 didn't have a title in the PG
> transcription, but the page scans have "Mark Twain" in huge letters
> above it. I decided to just file it as "Mark Twain" and add a title.
> * "The Character of Man" is only divided by dates that look nothing
> like titles (as they are italicized and right-aligned) but have
> bridgeheads. These were turned into titles.
> * I looked at multiple editions to try and get a feel for how this
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>
>
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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 19, 2021, 12:48:45 AM4/19/21
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Not yet. I just need to write the descriptions and check the styling for "The Character of Man" (so much CSS for one section). I just wanted to give you a fair warning before the review.

Emma

Emma Sweeney

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Apr 19, 2021, 2:57:43 PM4/19/21
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The Autobiography of Mark Twain is ready to review.

Additional Note:
In "The Character of Man" there is a mix of uppercase, small caps, and italics in the headers. I surrounded the uppercase text with <b>s and the italics with <i>s. I left the small caps alone and targeted the <p>s with CSS, except when the paragraphs have a mix of styling. This was so you can find everything easily and not have <b>s everywhere.

Emma

Alex Cabal

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Apr 26, 2021, 5:04:17 PM4/26/21
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OK, I've looked this over and everything looks good. This was a lot more
complicated than I thought!

The one thing I would suggest is to use classes instead of those huge ID
selector blocks. Classes aren't strictly illegal in SE style--they're
very useful in cases exactly like these where we have a large *class* of
elements to style.

We just want to avoid classes when there is no real *class* of elements
to target--i.e. when someone just wants to make one or two elements red,
using a class is adding unsemantic cruft to the HTML just because we
can't think of a better CSS selector to target one element.

Can you update that when you have a minute?

On 4/19/21 1:57 PM, Emma Sweeney wrote:
> The Autobiography of Mark Twain is ready to review.
> repository link:
> https://github.com/EmmaSweeney/mark-twain_the-autobiography-of-mark-twain <https://github.com/EmmaSweeney/mark-twain_the-autobiography-of-mark-twain>
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Emma Sweeney

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Apr 26, 2021, 5:54:49 PM4/26/21
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Thanks for reviewing this! I'll get that done.

Emma

Emma Sweeney

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Apr 26, 2021, 10:34:49 PM4/26/21
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Ok, I added two classes, "date" and "headline."

Emma

Alex Cabal

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Apr 27, 2021, 10:44:09 PM4/27/21
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