[Next Project] Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

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Christopher Hapka

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Dec 28, 2023, 6:19:42 AM12/28/23
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For my next project, I had in mind Maturin's novel Melmoth the Wanderer, which is on the "Intermediate" section of the Wanted list.

Text is at Project Gutenberg, in four volumes:


This text is taken from the four-volume first edition of 1820. I plan to proof it against the 1890s edition, published in three volumes, the latest available (it looks like the next major edition was in the 1960s):


The 1890s edition says it's an exact reproduction except for fixing obvious errors--and points out in the politest possible way that there were some. "Maturin's defective knowledge of Spanish ... will be obvious to all those who have even a superficial knowledge of the language."

Alex Cabal

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Dec 30, 2023, 7:02:32 PM12/30/23
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OK sure. You can remove the volume divisions as they appear to be there
just for physical practicality. I think this transcription uses *** to
mark the start of blockquotes and section breaks - compare with the page
scans to see what the stars actually mean in the transcription.

Please send a link to your repo once you start.
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Christopher Hapka

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Dec 31, 2023, 5:23:34 AM12/31/23
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Here's the repo:


And here's the first issue I've found poking at the text:

The text is divided into chapters as normal. But there are also stories that run across the chapters.

For example: chapter 5 starts in the main narrative. Halfway through, we get a large title: "The Tale of the Spaniard."


This story takes up the rest of Chapter 5. At the end of Chapter 5, there's a short paragraph saying, "The Spaniard was upset so he took a break," and there's a paragraph at the beginning of Chapter 6 describing him as resuming his story.


It carries on this way until halfway through chapter 14, where the Spaniard in his story is asked to translate another story. We get another subhed, "The Tale of the Indians," and this goes on for the rest of the book, with five "tales" in total making up most of the text.

It seems to me there are two options here:

1) Use a "dummy" section with a header (styled as in 7.2.10.8) but no h3 tag for each of the Tale headings. This would be easiest and would most closely reproduce the printed book.

or

2) Add subsections to almost every chapter in the book along the lines of "The Tale of the Spaniard (cont'd)". This seems like overkill for this text--I can see it making sense if it happened once and involved two chapters, but here it'd involve most of the 39 chapters.

Thoughts?

Alex Cabal

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Dec 31, 2023, 6:19:22 PM12/31/23
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This is going to be a lot of work because the frame narrative doesn't
use single quotes for nested quotes, so you're going to have to update
all of those. It also smashes dialog from different speakres into giant
paragraphs, and we should break those up for readability and properly
nest the quotation marks. I also see a few sections that are clearly
still the frame narrator but without opening quote marks, which are
probably typos. So very careful reading and a careful editing are going
to be required to correct and update all that.

As far as semantics go, you can put the story in a <blockquote> and use
the header pattern in 7.2.10.8. Then, using CSS remove the margins from
the blockquote so it appears as regular text.

On 12/31/23 4:23 AM, Christopher Hapka wrote:
> Here's the repo:
>
> https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer
>
> And here's the first issue I've found poking at the text:
>
> The text is divided into chapters as normal. But there are also stories
> that run across the chapters.
>
> For example: chapter 5 starts in the main narrative. Halfway through, we
> get a large title: "The Tale of the Spaniard."
>
> image: https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/117/
>
> This story takes up the rest of Chapter 5. At the end of Chapter 5,
> there's a short paragraph saying, "The Spaniard was upset so he took a
> break," and there's a paragraph at the beginning of Chapter 6 describing
> him as resuming his story.
>
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/218/
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/219/
>
> It carries on this way until halfway through chapter 14, where the
> Spaniard in his story is asked to translate another story. We get
> another subhed, "The Tale of the Indians," and this goes on for the rest
> of the book, with five "tales" in total making up most of the text.
>
> It seems to me there are two options here:
>
> 1) Use a "dummy" section with a header (styled as in 7.2.10.8
> <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.7.3/single-page#7.2.10.8>) but no
> h3 tag for each of the Tale headings. This would be easiest and would
> most closely reproduce the printed book.
>
> or
>
> 2) Add subsections to almost every chapter in the book along the lines
> of "The Tale of the Spaniard (cont'd)". This seems like overkill for
> this text--I can see it making sense if it happened once and involved
> two chapters, but here it'd involve most of the 39 chapters.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> On Sunday 31 December 2023 at 00:02:32 UTC Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK sure. You can remove the volume divisions as they appear to be there
> just for physical practicality. I think this transcription uses *** to
> mark the start of blockquotes and section breaks - compare with the
> page
> scans to see what the stars actually mean in the transcription.
>
> Please send a link to your repo once you start.
>
> On 12/28/23 5:19 AM, Christopher Hapka wrote:
> > For my next project, I had in mind Maturin's novel Melmoth the
> Wanderer,
> > which is on the "Intermediate" section of the Wanted list.
> >
> > Text is at Project Gutenberg, in four volumes:
> >
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53685
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53685>
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53686
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53686>
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53687
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53687>
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53688
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53688>
> >
> > This text is taken from the four-volume first edition of 1820. I
> plan to
> > proof it against the 1890s edition, published in three volumes, the
> > latest available (it looks like the next major edition was in the
> 1960s):
> >
> > https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft
> <https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft>
> > https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern02matuuoft
> <https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern02matuuoft>
> > https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern03matuuoft
> <https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern03matuuoft>
> >
> > The 1890s edition says it's an exact reproduction except for fixing
> > obvious errors--and points out in the politest possible way that
> there
> > were some. "Maturin's defective knowledge of Spanish ... will be
> obvious
> > to all those who have even a superficial knowledge of the language."
> >
> > --
> > 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 on the web visit
> >
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> --
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Alex Cabal

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Dec 31, 2023, 6:20:34 PM12/31/23
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Lukas can you manage this with Emma reviewing?

On 12/31/23 4:23 AM, Christopher Hapka wrote:
> Here's the repo:
>
> https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer
>
> And here's the first issue I've found poking at the text:
>
> The text is divided into chapters as normal. But there are also stories
> that run across the chapters.
>
> For example: chapter 5 starts in the main narrative. Halfway through, we
> get a large title: "The Tale of the Spaniard."
>
> image: https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/117/
>
> This story takes up the rest of Chapter 5. At the end of Chapter 5,
> there's a short paragraph saying, "The Spaniard was upset so he took a
> break," and there's a paragraph at the beginning of Chapter 6 describing
> him as resuming his story.
>
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/218/
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/219/
>
> It carries on this way until halfway through chapter 14, where the
> Spaniard in his story is asked to translate another story. We get
> another subhed, "The Tale of the Indians," and this goes on for the rest
> of the book, with five "tales" in total making up most of the text.
>
> It seems to me there are two options here:
>
> 1) Use a "dummy" section with a header (styled as in 7.2.10.8
> <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.7.3/single-page#7.2.10.8>) but no
> h3 tag for each of the Tale headings. This would be easiest and would
> most closely reproduce the printed book.
>
> or
>
> 2) Add subsections to almost every chapter in the book along the lines
> of "The Tale of the Spaniard (cont'd)". This seems like overkill for
> this text--I can see it making sense if it happened once and involved
> two chapters, but here it'd involve most of the 39 chapters.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> On Sunday 31 December 2023 at 00:02:32 UTC Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK sure. You can remove the volume divisions as they appear to be there
> just for physical practicality. I think this transcription uses *** to
> mark the start of blockquotes and section breaks - compare with the
> page
> scans to see what the stars actually mean in the transcription.
>
> Please send a link to your repo once you start.
>
> On 12/28/23 5:19 AM, Christopher Hapka wrote:
> > For my next project, I had in mind Maturin's novel Melmoth the
> Wanderer,
> > which is on the "Intermediate" section of the Wanted list.
> >
> > Text is at Project Gutenberg, in four volumes:
> >
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53685
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53685>
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53686
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53686>
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53687
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53687>
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53688
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53688>
> >
> > This text is taken from the four-volume first edition of 1820. I
> plan to
> > proof it against the 1890s edition, published in three volumes, the
> > latest available (it looks like the next major edition was in the
> 1960s):
> >
> > https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft
> <https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern03matuuoft>
> >
> > The 1890s edition says it's an exact reproduction except for fixing
> > obvious errors--and points out in the politest possible way that
> there
> > were some. "Maturin's defective knowledge of Spanish ... will be
> obvious
> > to all those who have even a superficial knowledge of the language."
> >
> > --
> > 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 on the web visit
> >
> --
> 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 on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/5db80556-4efa-40b1-8995-e29eee00dcc1n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/5db80556-4efa-40b1-8995-e29eee00dcc1n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

Emma Sweeney

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Dec 31, 2023, 7:52:46 PM12/31/23
to Standard Ebooks
I can review.

Emma

Christopher Hapka

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Jan 1, 2024, 1:59:12 AM1/1/24
to Standard Ebooks
1) I can do that, but it means that almost the entire book is going to be blockquoted. The first tale starts in chapter 5 and from there to the end of chapter 37 (of 39), everything is part of one or the other tale, with each one going on for multiple chapters.

2) Because everything is part of a tale, every single paragraph of every chapter except chapters 1-5 and 38-39 is set with running initial double quotes. This seems...very old-fashioned to me? Later practice, even later in the 19th century, would have been to not use running quotes and to use parentheses if there was a (said the Spaniard) in the first line. Would that make sense here? Otherwise, leaving the running quotes but breaking up the dialogue into individual paragraphs is going to leave us with a ton of paragraphs with " ' at the beginning, which is even uglier, and removing them would eliminate a lot of triple-nested quotes as well. What do you think?

Lukas Bystricky

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Jan 1, 2024, 4:28:54 AM1/1/24
to Standard Ebooks
1. That's fine, as Alex said you can use CSS to remove the added margins. A single blockquote can't span multiple chapters, so you'll have to start a new blockquote every chapter. 

2. Alex will need to rule on this. 

Alex Cabal

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Jan 1, 2024, 11:45:46 PM1/1/24
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OK, so this is probably a corner case because if 90% book is a
quotation, what does it mean to *be* a quotation? So I think in this
case we can dispense with blockquote and just use normal <p>s for the
book. You can mark the start of the frame story, and any block level
breaks, with an <hr/>.

As to whether or not to remove double quotes, I think that depends on
how many out-of-quotation asides there are, and how big they are. What
does that look like?
> https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer <https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer>
> >
> > And here's the first issue I've found poking at the text:
> >
> > The text is divided into chapters as normal. But there are
> also stories
> > that run across the chapters.
> >
> > For example: chapter 5 starts in the main narrative. Halfway
> through, we
> > get a large title: "The Tale of the Spaniard."
> >
> > image:
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/117/
> <https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/117/>
> >
> > This story takes up the rest of Chapter 5. At the end of
> Chapter 5,
> > there's a short paragraph saying, "The Spaniard was upset so
> he took a
> > break," and there's a paragraph at the beginning of Chapter 6
> describing
> > him as resuming his story.
> >
> >
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/218/
> <https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/218/>
> >
> https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/219/
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>>.
> >
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>
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Christopher Hapka

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Jan 2, 2024, 4:04:55 AM1/2/24
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1. On the issue of blockquotes...if I leave them out there will have to be be a section that is just for the header:

            <section id="tale-of-the-spaniard-header">
                <header>
                    <p>Tale of the Spaniard</p>
                </header>
            </section>

If you're okay with that, great. If you don't want to use a section that way, I can leave a blockquote in each chapter so the header has something more semantic to attach to.


2. On the running quotes question: I ran a quick grep for <p>[^“] from halfway through Chapter 5, where the first "tale" starts, to halfway through Chapter 38, where the last one ends. I got a total of six paragraphs that aren't quoted:

Chapter 5: one (the Spaniard stops for the day)
Chapter 6: two, one at the beginning and one at the end
Chapter 11: one in the middle of the chapter
Chapter 13: one in the middle of the chapter
Chapter 35: one at the beginning of the chapter

So six short paragraphs in about 200,000 words of story. 

Alex Cabal

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Jan 2, 2024, 12:51:28 PM1/2/24
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OK. I think we can remove the opening quotes then, because it would be
much easier to read. So perhaps you can simply italicize the asides that
are out of the frame narrative.
> https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer <https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer> <https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer <https://github.com/chapkachapka/charles-robert-maturin_melmoth-the-wanderer>>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ddaf88ee-afde-45d1-b862-5acb9ef3f695n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>>>.
> > >
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Christopher Hapka

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Jan 3, 2024, 6:58:06 AM1/3/24
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There’s a section in the book where gaps in a manuscript are indictated by long rows of asterisks: see pages 44 and 45 here: https://archive.org/details/melmothwanderern01matuuoft/page/44/mode/2up

I’ve been replacing these with normal ellipses and a paragraph break, is this correct? An hr doesn’t seem quite right for this.

Alex Cabal

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Jan 3, 2024, 10:53:35 AM1/3/24
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Yes that doesn't look like an <hr/>, I think a regular ellipses is
appropriate.
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Christopher Hapka

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Jan 4, 2024, 2:48:16 AM1/4/24
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Maturin uses the old-fashioned convention of setting off parenthetical with both parentheses and commas:

   As the carriage drew near the Lodge, (the name of old Melmoth’s seat), John’s heart grew heavier every moment.

He will also use a comma when the parenthetical ends the sentence:

  There was the salted salmon, (a luxury unknown even in London.)

These seem like the sort of thing we would normally modernize, but I don't see anything in the SEMoS, and I found a few examples of it in the corpus (Richardson's Clarissa, Paine's Age of Reason, Pride and Prejudice). Is this something I can or should modernize?





Vince

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Jan 4, 2024, 3:28:53 AM1/4/24
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It’s impossible to cover everything in SEMoS. :) I don’t know that we have an official position, but…

I’ve made them syntactically correct when I’ve encountered them, e.g. eliminating the first comma in both, and moving the period outside the paren in the last one. All editorial, naturally.

Lukas Bystricky

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Jan 4, 2024, 3:52:44 AM1/4/24
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To add to what Vince wrote, for anything not covered by our style guide we defer to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition. Unfortunately I don't have my own copy, but some searching yields this: "Commas, semicolons, and colons are not needed before parentheses; always put outside the ending parenthetical." (source

Christopher Hapka

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Jan 6, 2024, 4:52:35 PM1/6/24
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This has been a tough one to find a cover for; it's so picaresque it's hard to pick one picture that captures the whole thing, and "evil 18th century gentleman" is a limited genre.

There's a prominent shipwreck that appears early in the book and kicks off the plot, with a detailed description of a man climbing a rocky outcrop in the sea to try to reach the ship, so I thought this might work. What do you think? (CC0 at Yale.)

Buttersworth cover.png

Lukas Bystricky

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Jan 7, 2024, 12:35:45 AM1/7/24
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Looks good!

Christopher Hapka

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Jan 7, 2024, 2:40:03 AM1/7/24
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Do we modernize "corse" to "corpse"? (This is a Gothic novel so the word comes up a LOT.)

It's not clear from my quick research whether "corpse" and "corse" are the same word, or two different words derived from the same Latin root that converged in meaning and eventually in spelling. Regardless, by 1820 when this book was written, they were both in use and both meant "a dead body" --both had previously just meant "a human body, dead or alive."

I looked through the corpus (another cognate!) and it looks like other producers have mostly maintained it in poetry (which makes sense as it's pronounced differently) but I only found one prose work that retained it: Lewis' The Monk.

So...corse or corpse?

Vince Rice

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Jan 7, 2024, 3:56:01 AM1/7/24
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This will probably have to wait on Alex’s time zone, but we generally only modernize soundalikes, and those don’t sound alike.

> On Jan 7, 2024, at 2:40 PM, Christopher Hapka <ch...@hapka.com> wrote:
>
> Do we modernize "corse" to "corpse"? (This is a Gothic novel so the word comes up a LOT.)

Alex Cabal

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Jan 7, 2024, 5:05:41 PM1/7/24
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Agreed, leave it

Christopher Hapka

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Jan 12, 2024, 4:06:20 AM1/12/24
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Similar question: do we modernise "eat" in the past tense to "ate"? I don't know if this would have been pronounced the same way, but it seems likely.

"[they] supplied me with bread and water. I sat down and eat a little,  which I moistened with my tears."

Lukas Bystricky

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Jan 12, 2024, 5:41:31 AM1/12/24
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Hmm this is a tricky case. I think there's an argument either way but you're probably right that it could be a sound-alike so I think you can go ahead and change it. You should do this in a separate commit though in case Alex disagrees.

Brian

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Jan 12, 2024, 8:58:05 AM1/12/24
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Similar question: do we modernise "eat" in the past tense to "ate"? I don't know if this would have been pronounced the same way, but it seems likely.

"[they] supplied me with bread and water. I sat down and eat a little,  which I moistened with my tears."

I encountered this one a couple of times with "The Old Curiosity
Shop". This is actually the "proper" spelling of "et" (inasmuch as
there is one). Despite my arguments to change it to "ate", it was
decided that it should be left as-is, since that would not be a
soundalike respelling. (And to be fair, many other editions of Dickens
also leave it spelled as "eat".)

Alex Cabal

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Jan 12, 2024, 12:01:19 PM1/12/24
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I don't think this is sound alike, leave it as it is

On 1/12/24 4:41 AM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> Hmm this is a tricky case. I think there's an argument either way but
> you're probably right that it /could/ be a sound-alike so I think you
> can go ahead and change it. You should do this in a separate commit
> though in case Alex disagrees.
>
> On Friday, January 12, 2024 at 10:06:20 AM UTC+1 ch...@hapka.com wrote:
>
> Similar question: do we modernise "eat" in the past tense to "ate"?
> I don't know if this would have been pronounced the same way, but it
> seems likely.
>
> "[they] supplied me with bread and water. I sat down and *eat* a
> little,  which I moistened with my tears."
>
>
> On Sunday 7 January 2024 at 22:05:41 UTC Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Agreed, leave it
>
> On 1/7/24 2:55 AM, Vince Rice wrote:
> > This will probably have to wait on Alex’s time zone, but we
> generally only modernize soundalikes, and those don’t sound alike.
> >
> >> On Jan 7, 2024, at 2:40 PM, Christopher Hapka
> <ch...@hapka.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Do we modernize "corse" to "corpse"? (This is a Gothic
> novel so the word comes up a LOT.)
> >>
> >> It's not clear from my quick research whether "corpse" and
> "corse" are the same word, or two different words derived from
> the same Latin root that converged in meaning and eventually in
> spelling. Regardless, by 1820 when this book was written, they
> were both in use and both meant "a dead body" --both had
> previously just meant "a human body, dead or alive."
> >>
> >> I looked through the corpus (another cognate!) and it looks
> like other producers have mostly maintained it in poetry (which
> makes sense as it's pronounced differently) but I only found one
> prose work that retained it: Lewis' The Monk.
> >>
> >> So...corse or corpse?
> >
>
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Christopher Hapka

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Jan 20, 2024, 5:32:08 AM1/20/24
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Another modernisation question: there are a lot of Hindu and Buddhist gods name-checked in one section of the book, using old-fashioned spellings:

Seeva (Siva)
Krishnoo (Krishna)
Haree (Hari)
Maha-deva (Mahadeva)
Camdeo (Kamadeva)

and possibly a few others.

I know we standardise Mohammed; should or can I try to modernise/standardise these on the same principle? Or should I leave them alone?

Lukas Bystricky

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Jan 20, 2024, 6:28:37 AM1/20/24
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In general I would say it's probably ok, since we typically standardize transliterations of e.g. Russian names and Mohammed as you said. How did you arrive at the "standard" spelling though? For example MW says that "Siva" is actually a less common variant of "Shiva". Krishna and Hari I think are probably common enough but I'm not familiar with Mahadeva or Kamadeva. 

Alex Cabal

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Jan 20, 2024, 3:20:49 PM1/20/24
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Sound alike modernizations only. So if they modern version doesn't sound
alike, then leave it.

On 1/20/24 5:28 AM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> In general I would say it's probably ok, since we typically standardize
> transliterations of e.g. Russian names and Mohammed as you said. How did
> you arrive at the "standard" spelling though? For example MW says
> <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Siva> that "Siva" is
> actually a less common variant of "Shiva". Krishna and Hari I think are
> probably common enough but I'm not familiar with Mahadeva or Kamadeva.
>
> On Saturday, January 20, 2024 at 11:32:08 AM UTC+1 ch...@hapka.com wrote:
>
> Another modernisation question: there are a lot of Hindu and
> Buddhist gods name-checked in one section of the book, using
> old-fashioned spellings:
>
> Seeva (Siva)
> Krishnoo (Krishna)
> Haree (Hari)
> Maha-deva (Mahadeva)
> Camdeo (Kamadeva)
>
> and possibly a few others.
>
> I know we standardise Mohammed; should or can I try to
> modernise/standardise these on the same principle? Or should I leave
> them alone?
>
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Christopher Hapka

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Jan 21, 2024, 2:35:03 AM1/21/24
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Understood. Just to confirm we're on the same page, this means I could modernise:

Haree to Hari
Maha-deva to Mahadeva

but not:

Seeva to Shiva
Juggernaut to Jagannath

Lukas Bystricky

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Jan 21, 2024, 2:57:02 AM1/21/24
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That looks fine to me. As long as they're all in separate commits they're easy to revert later if need be. 

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Christopher Hapka

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Feb 6, 2024, 6:10:57 AM2/6/24
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Another question about modernisation:

There's a reference to the "domain" of the Melmoth estate early in the book. In more modern English, this would usually be spelled "demesne" but pronounced pretty much the same. Is this a "sound-alike" or should I leave it?

Lukas Bystricky

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Feb 6, 2024, 8:12:00 AM2/6/24
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I would leave it. MW says demesne is pronounced "di-mān" vs "dō- mān" for domain. I also think that demesne is a word that would have been more common in the past (ngram backs me up there), so I wouldn't re-insert it if it wasn't there originally.

Christopher Hapka

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Feb 9, 2024, 6:59:11 AM2/9/24
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Similar question: the region in Spain now usually spelled "Valencia" is spelled "Valentia" in the novel. I believe these are both approximations of the Spanish "ceceo" sound, and would likely be pronounced similarly.

Lukas Bystricky

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Feb 9, 2024, 11:36:01 AM2/9/24
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That one looks ok to me. Make sure to put it in a separate commit just in case.

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Christopher Hapka

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Feb 10, 2024, 5:46:12 AM2/10/24
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So SEMoS 4.1.1.2.7 says <hr/> tags are used only for a "thematic break." This novel uses a lot of rows of asterisks for a lot of purposes, but specifically it often uses an even row of five spaced asterisks to indicate a break.

Sometimes this is a clear "thematic break," but sometimes it seems more like a...dramatic pause? In a couple of places this happens between description and a block of dialogue, as here:

...he approached [the figure], and discovered the very object of his search⁠—the man whom he had seen for a moment in Valencia, and, after a search of four years, recognised at the theatre.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“You were in quest of me?”</p>
<p>“I was.”</p>...

(Page images)

If the author considered this a "thematic break," is that good enough for us, or are there stricter guidelines for what we call a "thematic break"? I thought I remembered reading some discussion of this but I can't find it now.


Lukas Bystricky

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Feb 10, 2024, 11:20:22 AM2/10/24
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I would say in that particular case that it could be read as thematic break so I would mark it as an <hr/>. Regarding more general guidelines, unfortunately I'm not aware of any. 

Vince

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Feb 10, 2024, 2:51:04 PM2/10/24
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In general, we use <hr/> for any break in continuity, whether marked (with asterisks, etc.) or not (just a space (or extra space) between paragraphs).

Brian

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Feb 10, 2024, 8:03:41 PM2/10/24
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Sometimes this is a clear "thematic break," but sometimes it seems more like a...dramatic pause? In a couple of places this happens between description and a block of dialogue
 
For what it's worth, I've seen these kinds of breaks in early 20th
century fiction as well. The section break seems to be functioning as
a sort of mini "cliffhanger", one that isn't quite deserving of a full
chapter break.

Christopher Hapka

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Mar 3, 2024, 7:04:46 AM3/3/24
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Okay--this took longer than I thought, but it's finally ready for review!

There's one outstanding issue that I know of: there's a passage that doesn't make sense to me, but it's exactly the same in both public domain editions, and I can't think of a simple change that would make it make sense. Here's the passage, from chapter 32:

<p>...[N]ot a ray [of light] fell on the figures of Elinor and her companion, as they sat in their massive chairs of carved-like figures in the richly-wrought niches of some Catholic place of worship⁠—</p>

To be clear, they're in a house, not a church, and it seems clear to me that the sense should be "they sat like figures." Changing the hyphen after carved to an em dash makes the second half of the sentence make sense, but that leaves the first part not making sense: "They sat in their massive chairs of carved."

My best guess would be something like "They sat in their massive chairs -- like carved figures" or "They sat in their massive carved chairs -- like figures" but I'm not sure which would be better. I don't have access to a modern edition to see what modern editors have made of it.

Emma Sweeney

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Mar 3, 2024, 3:17:05 PM3/3/24
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I'll review this in the next couple of days.

Emma

gwen...@gmail.com

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Mar 4, 2024, 11:41:47 AM3/4/24
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I'm not an editor, but this looks to me like compound adjectives modifying nouns.  So "carved-like" modifies "figures" and "richly-wrought" modifies "niches".

...they sat in their chairs in the niches 
...they sat in their chairs of figures in the niches of some place of worship⁠
...they sat in their massive chairs of carved-like figures in the richly-wrought niches of some Catholic place of worship⁠

Gwen

Christopher Hapka

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Mar 4, 2024, 2:03:19 PM3/4/24
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The problem is, that doesn't make sense in context; it's clear that this is supposed to be a metaphor for statues in a church. Here's a longer passage:

"...imagine them seated in the antique study of the clergyman, whose shelves were filled with the ponderous volumes of ancient learning⁠—the embers of a peat fire shed a dim and fitful light through the room, and the single candle that burned on a distant oaken stand, seemed to shed its light on that alone⁠—not a ray fell on the figures of Elinor and her companion, as they sat in their massive chairs of carved-like figures in the richly-wrought niches of some Catholic place of worship⁠—"
            “That is a most profane and abominable comparison,” said Aliaga, starting from the doze in which he had frequently indulged during this long narrative.

Gwen Byrne

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Mar 4, 2024, 3:01:39 PM3/4/24
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I don’t see where the confusion is coming from, but you are right, I don’t have the wider context of the story. 

What’s the metaphor? Are you saying the Elinor and her companion aren’t sitting on actual chairs, but they are sitting on statues?

I read it as Elinor and her companion are sitting on chairs. The chairs are massive. The chairs are made of figures, specifically carved-like figures.  I’m picturing big, ornate, wooden chairs that have people carved into the legs and spindles of the chair. Does that not make sense to you, given what you know of the story?

Gwen

On Mar 4, 2024, at 11:03 AM, Christopher Hapka <ch...@hapka.com> wrote:

The problem is, that doesn't make sense in context; it's clear that this is supposed to be a metaphor for statues in a church. Here's a longer passage:
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Emma Sweeney

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Mar 4, 2024, 9:07:05 PM3/4/24
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Great work! I filed some issues in the repository.

Emma

Brian

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Mar 5, 2024, 1:44:16 AM3/5/24
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The problem is, that doesn't make sense in context; it's clear that this is supposed to be a metaphor for statues in a church.

One possible explanation is that this statement is made in dialogue,
so it could be meant as the character using unfamiliar idiomatic
constructions. Perhaps one where "of carved-like figures in ..." is
meant to be understood to mean "like carved figures in...." I know
"like" is sometimes used in modern slang as a suffix in similarly odd
ways.

Emma Sweeney

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Mar 12, 2024, 11:49:00 PM3/12/24
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Alex, this one is ready for you.

Emma

Alex Cabal

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Mar 15, 2024, 2:18:40 PM3/15/24
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Great work Christopher, that was a lot of careful spelling and editorial
work you did. Thanks! I've released it.
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