[Next Project] The Paliser Case, by Edgar Saltus

[Bob Reus]

As I'm still collecting short stories for Saltus's Short Fiction collection, I picked this up to have something to read in the meantime. This is a fairly straightforward production: transcription is accurate, italics intact.

PG: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/29847
IA: https://archive.org/details/palistercase00saltrich
Github repository: https://github.com/bob-reus/edgar-saltus_the-paliser-case
Wordcount: 84k

I have already finished proofreading, so it shouldn't take too long to finish this up.

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Robin will manage this with Vince reviewing.

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[Bob Reus]

Thank you! I ran into a few uncertainties while processing my proofreading notes:

1. SEMoS 8.15 states that legal cases are set in italics. Does this apply to cases stated as "X versus Y" only? Those are the only occurrences I could find in the corpus. There are a few legal matters and cases mentioned in the book:

  “I want your views on that case, ‘The Matter of Ziegler.’ ”
  "there is this Matter of Ziegler, concerning which I would like the benefit of your professional advice."
  "Your rights may be contested. The Paliser Case, as it will be called..."

  "When that hat again appeared in Dunwoodie’s office, the Paliser Case was over. It had ended before it began."

2. In the sentence "Goodbye! Addio per sempre! The phrase from La Tosca came to her", La Tosca refers to Puccini's opera Tosca. La Tosca is the name of the French play it was based on. I semanticated this as opera, but should I change the title in an editorial commit or leave it?

2b. In a similar instance, Seneca's De Tranquillitate Animi is referred to as De animæ tranquilitate. Should I semanticate and leave it as stated?

3. modernize-spelling changes good-bye to goodbye in "This is just a good-day and good-bye.", which looks odd in this particular case. Could I leave it as is?

I would also like to suggest the following additions to modernize-spelling:
turn about -> turnabout
business man -> businessman
good-looks -> good looks

[Robin Whittleton]

1. Let’s reserve italicisation to x vs y, I think. Typically when SEMOS doesn’t say something we can look to the Chicago Manual of Style, but I can’t find any reference to non-vs legal cases there either.

2. There are a whole bunch of “La Tosca” recordings of the opera on archive.org: https://archive.org/search?query=la+tosca. We can leave it as the opera, and leave the title as is.

2b. Yep, we typically only do Editorial commits for soundalike changes. We can add the semantics as it’s obvious what it’s referring to.

3. Given that I assume you’ll have modernised “good-bye” to “goodbye” in other parts of the production it’d be odd to have it different here? I’ve definitely done a similar thing in my productions, but usually not when it’s a common word. What do you think?

-Robin

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[Bob Reus]

> 3. Given that I assume you’ll have modernised “good-bye” to “goodbye” in other parts of the production it’d be odd to have it different here? I’ve definitely done a similar thing in my productions, but usually not when it’s a common word. What do you think?

That's a good point, I'll think about it some more. 

For the cover, I'm thinking of La première d'Hernani. Avant la bataille by Albert Besnard, which is CC0 at Paris Musées. 
The titular Mr. Paliser is murdered in his private opera box during a performance of Aïda. I propose a crop of (the admittedly less interesting) half of the painting, where one of the boxes is empty. I'm not sure which of the following crops is better, but I think I like the first one more. 

 

[Robin Whittleton]

Looks good! I’ve added it to the artworks DB (under the painter’s name of Paul-Albert Besnard as that‘s what Wikipedia has gone for).

-Robin

On 22 Jul 2025, at 15:33, Bob Reus <bobr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 3. Given that I assume you’ll have modernised “good-bye” to “goodbye” in other parts of the production it’d be odd to have it different here? I’ve definitely done a similar thing in my productions, but usually not when it’s a common word. What do you think?

That's a good point, I'll think about it some more. 

For the cover, I'm thinking of La première d'Hernani. Avant la bataille by Albert Besnard, which is CC0 at Paris Musées. 
The titular Mr. Paliser is murdered in his private opera box during a performance of Aïda. I propose a crop of (the admittedly less interesting) half of the painting, where one of the boxes is empty. I'm not sure which of the following crops is better, but I think I like the first one more. 

<crop-1-mockup.jpg> <crop-2-mockup.jpg>

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/4e7f2bff-db1d-434f-9913-2e4aa140f796n%40googlegroups.com.
<crop-1-mockup.jpg><crop-2-mockup.jpg>

[Bob Reus]

Thank you, I will add it to content.opf and the colophon under the same name. 

I'm close to finishing this up, but I ran into a few more issues: 

1. In my research for the Saltus Short Fiction collection, I discovered that The Paliser Case is a reworked version of an earlier novel, The Perfume of Eros. In the words of his biographer, Claire Sprague: "[...] Such oases cannot be said to refresh The Paliser Case (1919) which is a poor reworking of The Perfume of Eros (1905)." I started reading The Perfume of Eros yesterday, to see which one is better, but I see no reason to drop The Paliser Case for it as of yet.
2. I've thought about the "good-day and good-bye" question some more, and I would like to modernize "good-bye" to "goodbye," as modernize-spelling suggests, but keep the dash in "good-day." "A good-day" should be read as a single noun here, just like "a goodbye." Removing the dash would make it read like an interjection or adjective+noun. What do you think?
3. There are a few more references to law-related publications that I'm not certain how to semanticate. I assume that "The New York Reports" refers to the publications of court decisions, which could be a journal. Then there's "the Code" and "the Revised Statutes", and the "Laws of 1907" (and 1901). For each of these you could argue that they don't refer to the actual publication, but to what they represent, but then there is one instance of "in Chapter 742 of the Laws of 1907." Should I use se:name.publication, or not semanticate at all?

[Robin Whittleton]

1. No problem, let’s see what you decide
2. Sounds good
3. I’d go with se:name.publication.book for the unknown ones. For the chapter reference you’d italicise the “Laws of 1907” part.

-Robin

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[Alex Cabal]

Hi Bob, I've updated your research spreadsheet to the new template:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jk5JDYCw8kWHtTCeVMQizmd_VKvUisxWxoN4x-G-zF8

I think I got everything in your sheet, though it was sometimes unclear
which works were being included and which weren't.

Can you do a quick once-over on the new sheet to confirm it's correct?
Any work that is included will be in yellow, excluded works will be in
white. If I marked them wrong, just put "Short Fiction" into the "S.E.
Omnibus Name" field to mark it as meant to be included.

Once you've added a story to the epub, please check the "in omnibus?"
field to indicate we officially have it. That will turn the row green.

Thanks!

On 9/17/25 10:22 PM, Bob Reus wrote:
> Thank you, I will add it to content.opf and the colophon under the same
> name.
>
> I'm close to finishing this up, but I ran into a few more issues:
>

> 1. In my research for the Saltus Short Fiction collection, I discovered
> that /The Paliser Case/ is a reworked version of an earlier novel, /
> The Perfume of Eros/. In the words of his biographer, Claire
> Sprague: "[...] Such oases cannot be said to refresh /The Paliser
> Case/ (1919) which is a poor reworking of /The Perfume of Eros/
> (1905)." I started reading /The Perfume of Eros/ yesterday, to see
> which one is better, but I see no reason to drop /The Paliser Case/

> for it as of yet.

> 2. I've thought about the "good-day and good-bye" question some more,
> and I would like to modernize "good-bye" to "goodbye," as /
> modernize-spelling/ suggests, but keep the dash in "good-day." "A

> good-day" should be read as a single noun here, just like "a goodbye

> <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goodbye>." Removing the

> dash would make it read like an interjection or adjective+noun. What
> do you think?

> 3. There are a few more references to law-related publications that I'm

> not certain how to semanticate. I assume that "The New York Reports"

> refers to the publications of court decisions <https://
> www.nycourts.gov/reporter/Decisions.shtml>, which could be a

> journal. Then there's "the Code" and "the Revised Statutes", and the
> "Laws of 1907" (and 1901). For each of these you could argue that
> they don't refer to the actual publication, but to what they
> represent, but then there is one instance of "in Chapter 742 of the
> Laws of 1907." Should I use se:name.publication, or not semanticate
> at all?
>
>
> On Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 1:59:45 AM UTC+8 robin wrote:
>
> Looks good! I’ve added it to the artworks DB (under the painter’s
> name of Paul-Albert Besnard as that‘s what Wikipedia has gone for).
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 22 Jul 2025, at 15:33, Bob Reus <bobr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > 3. Given that I assume you’ll have modernised “good-bye” to
>> “goodbye” in other parts of the production it’d be odd to have it
>> different here? I’ve definitely done a similar thing in my
>> productions, but usually not when it’s a common word. What do you
>> think?
>>
>> That's a good point, I'll think about it some more.
>>

>> For the cover, I'm thinking of /La première d'Hernani. Avant la
>> bataille /by Albert Besnard, which is CC0 at Paris Musées
>> <https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/maison-de-victor-
>> hugo/oeuvres/la-premiere-d-hernani-avant-la-bataille#infos-
>> principales>.

>> The titular Mr. Paliser is murdered in his private opera box
>> during a performance of Aïda. I propose a crop of (the admittedly
>> less interesting) half of the painting, where one of the boxes is
>> empty. I'm not sure which of the following crops is better, but I
>> think I like the first one more.
>>
>> <crop-1-mockup.jpg> <crop-2-mockup.jpg>
>>
>> On Sunday, July 13, 2025 at 8:13:41 PM UTC+8 robin wrote:
>>
>> 1. Let’s reserve italicisation to x vs y, I think. Typically
>> when SEMOS doesn’t say something we can look to the Chicago
>> Manual of Style, but I can’t find any reference to non-vs
>> legal cases there either.
>>
>> 2. There are a whole bunch of “La Tosca” recordings of the

>> opera on archive.org <http://archive.org/>: https://
>> archive.org/search?query=la+tosca <https://archive.org/search?
>> query=la+tosca>. We can leave it as the opera, and leave the

>> title as is.
>>
>> 2b. Yep, we typically only do Editorial commits for soundalike
>> changes. We can add the semantics as it’s obvious what it’s
>> referring to.
>>
>> 3. Given that I assume you’ll have modernised “good-bye” to
>> “goodbye” in other parts of the production it’d be odd to have
>> it different here? I’ve definitely done a similar thing in my
>> productions, but usually not when it’s a common word. What do
>> you think?
>>
>> -Robin
>>
>>> On 13 Jul 2025, at 04:07, Bob Reus <bobr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thank you! I ran into a few uncertainties while processing my
>>> proofreading notes:
>>>

>>> 1.SEMoS 8.15 <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.3/single-
>>> page#8.15> states that legal cases are set in italics. Does

>>> this apply to cases stated as "X versus Y" only? Those are
>>> the only occurrences I could find in the corpus. There are a
>>> few legal matters and cases mentioned in the book:
>>>   “I want your views on that case, ‘The Matter of Ziegler.’ ”
>>>   "there is this Matter of Ziegler, concerning which I would
>>> like the benefit of your professional advice."
>>>   "Your rights may be contested. The Paliser Case, as it will
>>> be called..."
>>>   "When that hat again appeared in Dunwoodie’s office, the
>>> Paliser Case was over. It had ended before it began."
>>>
>>> 2. In the sentence "Goodbye! Addio per sempre! The phrase
>>> from La Tosca came to her", La Tosca refers to Puccini's

>>> operaTosca <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tosca>. La Tosca is
>>> the name ofthe French play it was based on <https://
>>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Tosca>. I semanticated this as

>>> opera, but should I change the title in an editorial commit
>>> or leave it?

>>> 2b. In a similar instance, Seneca's/De Tranquillitate Animi/
>>> is referred to as/De animæ tranquilitate/. Should I

>>> semanticate and leave it as stated?
>>>

>>> 3./modernize-spelling/ changes good-bye to goodbye in "This

>>> is just a good-day and good-bye.", which looks odd in this
>>> particular case. Could I leave it as is?
>>>
>>>
>>> I would also like to suggest the following additions to
>>> modernize-spelling:
>>> turn about -> turnabout
>>> business man -> businessman
>>> good-looks -> good looks
>>> On Sunday, July 13, 2025 at 1:06:07 AM UTC+8 Alex Cabal wrote:
>>>
>>> OK, Robin will manage this with Vince reviewing.
>>>
>>> On 7/12/25 10:30 AM, Bob Reus wrote:
>>> > As I'm still collecting short stories for Saltus's
>>> Short Fiction
>>> > collection, I picked this up to have something to read
>>> in the meantime.
>>> > This is a fairly straightforward production:
>>> transcription is accurate,
>>> > italics intact.
>>> >

>>> > PG:https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/29847 <https://
>>> gutenberg.org/ebooks/29847>
>>> > IA:https://archive.org/details/palistercase00saltrich

>>> <https://archive.org/details/palistercase00saltrich>
>>> > Github repository:https://github.com/bob-reus/edgar-

>>> saltus_the-paliser-case <https://github.com/bob-reus/
>>> edgar-saltus_the-paliser-case>

>>> > Wordcount: 84k
>>> >
>>> > I have already finished proofreading, so it shouldn't
>>> take too long to
>>> > finish this up.
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to
>>> the Google
>>> > Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
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