[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>

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