Typos and suggestions for Dracula by Bram Stoker
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shad...@comcast.net
May 29, 2022, 8:15:54 PM5/29/22
to Standard Ebooks
Hello Standard Ebooks,
I just recently found this project and I absolutely love the work that you are doing!
Apologies up front, this email is a bit long.
First, some helpful links for Dracula:
Standard Ebook
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/bram-stoker/dracula
Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345
Book scan from Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/dracula00stok/
OCR text of book scan
https://archive.org/stream/dracula00stok/dracula00stok_djvu.txt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a typo in the Standard Ebook that does not appear in the source texts:
felt quite;astray doing -> felt quite astray doing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then we have typos that are found in the ebook and both source texts:
been practising shorthand
practising very hard
with a little practice
theory and practice
kept the good practise
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next, I don't think they're typos, but punctuation modernizations:
In letter salutations, the salutation always ends with an em-dash. Should this be changed to a comma?
Throughout the book, when a character introduces a quote in a new line from another character, the punctuation used to denote that is ":—" whereas in modern writing just a colon is most commonly used.
There are a few uses of "—!" which I am not sure if they should be changed to just an exclamation mark:
and then—! So I
there except—!” Again he
but his—! The Professor
Similarly, there are uses of "!—" which I think should just be an exclamation mark, but some might be better with just an em-dash or an ellipsis depending on the context:
and he!—I fear
which He—It!—dare not
no more!—into the
so clever!—in reading
the meantime!—the thought
But, alas!—
afraid, afraid!—I am
There are a lot of exclamations and interjections in Dracula, many of which do not capitalize the word following the exclamation mark:
unconscious cerebration! you
Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed
then pouf! and there comes
Nay! fear not
Multiple instances with the word "hush" appear:
hush! no telling
Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name
Hush! there is someone in the corridor
Hush! go back to bed
Hush! let me speak
Multiple instances with the word "Oh!" Unfortunately, I think some should capitalize the following word, but others are best served by replacing the exclamation mark with a comma. Some I could see with either solution:
Oh! young Herr
oh! did use
oh! so lonely
Oh! but it seemed
oh! so sorrowfully
oh! so wily
oh! I dread
Oh! for a dream
Oh! if I could
oh! so rocky
oh! the terror
There is one sentence which is hard to parse at first, but I think is grammatically correct:
which could thus use the to him most sacred of things
[This is how it appears in both source texts, but I think it would be much easier to understand if "to him" was a parenthetical between em-dashes or parentheses. I wouldn't use commas because that is already a comma-heavy sentence]
I don't know what the modern style is nowadays, but what about ending in-line quotes with exclamation marks and then the following word is lowercase? My first instinct is that the exclamation marks should be commas, and this lines up with the numerous exclamations mentioned above. There are hundreds of examples in the book so I won't list them all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It looks like for diary/journal entries, for the most part they are formatted as a new <blockquote> when the character changes and a nested <blockquote> for subsequent entries by the same character. This is not true in chapters 1-4. These chapters are all from a single perspective throughout the chapter and all entries are <blockquote>s under the global <section> so I can see why nested <blockquote>s aren't strictly necessary, but for consistency would it make sense to wrap each of those chapters in a larger <blockquote>?
Also, descriptions of entries (e.g. "Jonathan Harker's Journal") are generally under the <header> as <p class="first-child"> for each <blockquote>, but in the first four chapters they are in the <header> as <p epub:type="bridgehead"> below the global <section>. Again I think it would be more consistent if the first four chapters matched the rest of the book.
According to the Manual of Style section 7.7.2.1: "Parts of a letter prior to the body of the letter, for example the location where it is written, the date, and the salutation, are wrapped in a <header> element." Consistently throughout the book, the dateline and salutation are instead in the body of each <blockquote>. Should this be changed?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remove global quotation marks around letters. The vast majority of the book is written as either journal/diary entries or letters. Every single letter is wrapped in quotation marks. That means each and every paragraph of a letter has opening quotation marks, including the dateline, valediction, and signature. That also means that all quotations within letters use single quotes instead of double quotes. It is somewhat jarring to go between letters with quotes around everything to journal entries without them. I understand the perspective that letters are dialogue in some sense, but to me the text flows much better without the quotation marks.
Datelines in journals should match datelines in letters. Dates for letters are written above the body aligned right, as you would expect, but journal dates are written inline with the body.
Remove extraneous periods in headings (e.g. "Mina Murray's Journal.", "Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.").
Remove extraneous periods and dashes around datelines and letter signatures (e.g. "Buda-Pesth, 24 August.", "20 August.—", "Mina Harker."
Thank you
I just recently found this project and I absolutely love the work that you are doing!
Apologies up front, this email is a bit long.
First, some helpful links for Dracula:
Standard Ebook
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/bram-stoker/dracula
Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345
Book scan from Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/dracula00stok/
OCR text of book scan
https://archive.org/stream/dracula00stok/dracula00stok_djvu.txt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a typo in the Standard Ebook that does not appear in the source texts:
felt quite;astray doing -> felt quite astray doing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then we have typos that are found in the ebook and both source texts:
columns of small figures.) -> columns of small figures).
[This entire sentence is within parentheses. I don't know if it would be better to get rid of them?]
all the sleep I could....
[ebook uses a period followed by an ellipsis. I think just an ellipsis is most appropriate]
To them I say: "Pouf!" ' -> To them I say: "Pouf!"'
presence of such an one -> presence of such a one
'Soh!' -> 'So!'
[This is an archaic spelling. I know you previously decided that archaic spellings won't be changed in Dracula because of its epistolary format, but in this case there are other examples in the text using "so" as an exclamation, so this is just an inconsistency problem, not a spelling issue]
There is also inconsistency in the spelling of practice/practise in the ebook carried over from the source texts. There should probably be consolidation:
been practising shorthand
practising very hard
with a little practice
theory and practice
kept the good practise
like to practise interviewing
[the source texts differ on this last one: book scan uses practice, Gutenberg uses practise]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next, I don't think they're typos, but punctuation modernizations:
In letter salutations, the salutation always ends with an em-dash. Should this be changed to a comma?
Throughout the book, when a character introduces a quote in a new line from another character, the punctuation used to denote that is ":—" whereas in modern writing just a colon is most commonly used.
There are a few uses of "—!" which I am not sure if they should be changed to just an exclamation mark:
and then—! So I
there except—!” Again he
but his—! The Professor
and he!—I fear
which He—It!—dare not
no more!—into the
so clever!—in reading
the meantime!—the thought
But, alas!—
afraid, afraid!—I am
unconscious cerebration! you
Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed
then pouf! and there comes
Nay! fear not
might be—nay! if the
[I think a comma instead of an exclamation mark is more appropriate here because "nay" is part of a parenthetical between two em-dashes]
hush! no telling
Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name
Hush! there is someone in the corridor
Hush! go back to bed
Hush! let me speak
Multiple instances with the word "Oh!" Unfortunately, I think some should capitalize the following word, but others are best served by replacing the exclamation mark with a comma. Some I could see with either solution:
Oh! young Herr
oh! did use
oh! so lonely
Oh! but it seemed
oh! so sorrowfully
oh! so wily
oh! I dread
Oh! for a dream
Oh! if I could
oh! so rocky
oh! the terror
There is one sentence which is hard to parse at first, but I think is grammatically correct:
which could thus use the to him most sacred of things
[This is how it appears in both source texts, but I think it would be much easier to understand if "to him" was a parenthetical between em-dashes or parentheses. I wouldn't use commas because that is already a comma-heavy sentence]
I don't know what the modern style is nowadays, but what about ending in-line quotes with exclamation marks and then the following word is lowercase? My first instinct is that the exclamation marks should be commas, and this lines up with the numerous exclamations mentioned above. There are hundreds of examples in the book so I won't list them all.
You discussed something similar on the mailing list earlier:
One suggestion is that it was an OCR error, but in this case they appear in the book scans and I believe it's just obsolete punctuation style.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't have any experience with EPUB formatting or xhtml, but I think there are inconsistencies with how things are formatted. I haven't done an exhaustive look so there may be more:
It looks like for diary/journal entries, for the most part they are formatted as a new <blockquote> when the character changes and a nested <blockquote> for subsequent entries by the same character. This is not true in chapters 1-4. These chapters are all from a single perspective throughout the chapter and all entries are <blockquote>s under the global <section> so I can see why nested <blockquote>s aren't strictly necessary, but for consistency would it make sense to wrap each of those chapters in a larger <blockquote>?
Also, descriptions of entries (e.g. "Jonathan Harker's Journal") are generally under the <header> as <p class="first-child"> for each <blockquote>, but in the first four chapters they are in the <header> as <p epub:type="bridgehead"> below the global <section>. Again I think it would be more consistent if the first four chapters matched the rest of the book.
According to the Manual of Style section 7.7.2.1: "Parts of a letter prior to the body of the letter, for example the location where it is written, the date, and the salutation, are wrapped in a <header> element." Consistently throughout the book, the dateline and salutation are instead in the body of each <blockquote>. Should this be changed?
There's nothing in the Manual of Style for journal/diary entries, but should datelines be put in a <header> as well?
Last but not least, I have some suggestions about formatting which I think would "beautify" the book and make it look more consistent. Let me stress that each of these would diverge from the source texts, so I wholeheartedly understand if you are unwilling to implement these changes:
Remove global quotation marks around letters. The vast majority of the book is written as either journal/diary entries or letters. Every single letter is wrapped in quotation marks. That means each and every paragraph of a letter has opening quotation marks, including the dateline, valediction, and signature. That also means that all quotations within letters use single quotes instead of double quotes. It is somewhat jarring to go between letters with quotes around everything to journal entries without them. I understand the perspective that letters are dialogue in some sense, but to me the text flows much better without the quotation marks.
Datelines in journals should match datelines in letters. Dates for letters are written above the body aligned right, as you would expect, but journal dates are written inline with the body.
Remove extraneous periods in headings (e.g. "Mina Murray's Journal.", "Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.").
Remove extraneous periods and dashes around datelines and letter signatures (e.g. "Buda-Pesth, 24 August.", "20 August.—", "Mina Harker."
Thank you
Vince
May 29, 2022, 10:54:02 PM5/29/22
to Standard Ebooks
Thank you for the attentive review!
The first typo should definitely be fixed. I’ll do a PR if Alex doesn’t get to it first.
For the next section, it does not appear than any of those are typos:
- If an entire sentence is in parens, then the period goes inside.
- We respect what the source has for ellipses. Although there is a technical difference between three and four, in practice books of the time are rather indiscriminate in their use.
- We use hairspaces between two quotes whenever they appear consecutively.
- British spelling uses practise as a verb and practice as a noun, so all your examples appear to be correct.
We do not generally modernize punctuation. In the particular case, lowercase following exclamations is quite common in the period in which most of our work was written, and we leave them as is.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you re quotation marks on letters that are not part of dialog (i.e. being read out loud), but our editor-in-chief (who produced Dracula) prefers to leave them as is.
The inline journal dates match the source scans, and there is no compelling reason to make them consistent with the letters (journal entries are not letters). This is also why the first four chapters are formatted differently: they are journal entries, vs. most of the remaining chapters being letters, and the remainder being mixed. And, again, in all cases that I looked at, they match the source formatting.
Thank you again for your careful reading!
Alex Cabal
May 29, 2022, 11:05:39 PM5/29/22
to standar...@googlegroups.com
I've gone ahead and fixed that one typo. As Vince points out, the rest
are things that are either SE style (like hair spaces between nested
quotations) or things that we wouldn't change. Much of what you point
out is very common in texts of that era: dashes plus exclamation marks,
no capitalization following some exclamations, etc. In almost all cases
we don't change punctuation outside of whatever our automated tools do.
I note that you appear to be looking at the source of the "compatible"
epub. If you're inspecting the source, you should look at the Github
repo instead (or the "advanced" epub, which is just the raw Github
repo). The compatible epub is not the same, and contains a lot of
compatibility tweaks.
Dracula was one of the first ebooks we produced, so some of it may not
be up to date in terms of modern SE practices. We might consider adding
<header> to letters in which the salutation/etc. are not inline with the
body to bring it up to current standards. If you'd like to do that, you
can submit a PR. But if you do, make sure the changes don't change the
formatting of the resulting book.
Thanks for taking a look!
On 5/29/22 9:53 PM, Vince wrote:
> Thank you for the attentive review!
>
> The first typo should definitely be fixed. I’ll do a PR if Alex doesn’t
> get to it first.
>
> For the next section, it does not appear than any of those are typos:
>
> * If an entire sentence is in parens, then the period goes inside.
> * We respect what the source has for ellipses. Although there is a
> * British spelling uses practise as a verb and practice as a noun, so
> --
> 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/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
are things that are either SE style (like hair spaces between nested
quotations) or things that we wouldn't change. Much of what you point
out is very common in texts of that era: dashes plus exclamation marks,
no capitalization following some exclamations, etc. In almost all cases
we don't change punctuation outside of whatever our automated tools do.
I note that you appear to be looking at the source of the "compatible"
epub. If you're inspecting the source, you should look at the Github
repo instead (or the "advanced" epub, which is just the raw Github
repo). The compatible epub is not the same, and contains a lot of
compatibility tweaks.
Dracula was one of the first ebooks we produced, so some of it may not
be up to date in terms of modern SE practices. We might consider adding
<header> to letters in which the salutation/etc. are not inline with the
body to bring it up to current standards. If you'd like to do that, you
can submit a PR. But if you do, make sure the changes don't change the
formatting of the resulting book.
Thanks for taking a look!
On 5/29/22 9:53 PM, Vince wrote:
> Thank you for the attentive review!
>
> The first typo should definitely be fixed. I’ll do a PR if Alex doesn’t
> get to it first.
>
> For the next section, it does not appear than any of those are typos:
>
> * We respect what the source has for ellipses. Although there is a
> technical difference between three and four, in practice books of
> the time are rather indiscriminate in their use.
> * We use hairspaces between two quotes whenever they appear consecutively.
> the time are rather indiscriminate in their use.
> * British spelling uses practise as a verb and practice as a noun, so
> all your examples appear to be correct.
>
>
> We do not generally modernize punctuation. In the particular case,
> lowercase following exclamations is quite common in the period in which
> most of our work was written, and we leave them as is.
>
> I don’t necessarily disagree with you re quotation marks on letters that
> are not part of dialog (i.e. being read out loud), but our
> editor-in-chief (who produced /Dracula/) prefers to leave them as is.
>
>
> We do not generally modernize punctuation. In the particular case,
> lowercase following exclamations is quite common in the period in which
> most of our work was written, and we leave them as is.
>
> I don’t necessarily disagree with you re quotation marks on letters that
> are not part of dialog (i.e. being read out loud), but our
>
> The inline journal dates match the source scans, and there is no
> compelling reason to make them consistent with the letters (journal
> entries are not letters). This is also why the first four chapters are
> formatted differently: they are journal entries, vs. most of the
> remaining chapters being letters, and the remainder being mixed. And,
> again, in all cases that I looked at, they match the source formatting.
>
> Thank you again for your careful reading!
>
>
>> On May 29, 2022, at 7:15 PM, shad...@comcast.net
> The inline journal dates match the source scans, and there is no
> compelling reason to make them consistent with the letters (journal
> entries are not letters). This is also why the first four chapters are
> formatted differently: they are journal entries, vs. most of the
> remaining chapters being letters, and the remainder being mixed. And,
> again, in all cases that I looked at, they match the source formatting.
>
> Thank you again for your careful reading!
>
>
>> On May 29, 2022, at 7:15 PM, shad...@comcast.net
> 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/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
shad...@comcast.net
May 30, 2022, 3:11:26 AM5/30/22
to Standard Ebooks
Thank you both for your quick responses. Glad I could help!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found one more discrepancy between the Standard Ebook and the source texts:
There are many chapters in the Standard Ebook where a period has
been added to the header for the chapter's first entry where there is no period in
the source text:
1, 6, 8, 10 (scan and Gutenberg differ), 12, 14, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27
Generally speaking, in the book scan and on Project Gutenberg, if the first entry of a chapter is a journal or diary entry, there is no period following the entry header (e.g. "Mina Murray's Journal" not "Mina Murray's Journal."). If the first entry is a letter, there is a period. I see two chapters in the book scan which do not follow this rule. Chapter 10 begins with a letter, but it does not have a period (yet Gutenberg does). Chapter 11 begins with a diary entry, but it does end with a period (Gutenberg matches this).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are correct that I was looking at the "compatible" epub source files. I'll make sure to use the repo in the future.
That does raise a question for me, though. I am actually reading on a Kobo Libra 2, and I used the kepub file from your website. I noticed the space between the quotation marks because it renders as bigger than a hair space. However, I also have the same issue that was brought up here:
You said that was also a hair space. Clearly, at least for the kepub file, they are two different characters or the Kobo sees them differently. I will note that all of the files ("compatible" epub, "advanced" epub, and kepub) appear to render correctly and identically when I open them up in firefox.
Am I correct that you run the primary source files through conversion software (Calibre or something else) to get the kepub? In which case you don't have any control over the output, yes? And you don't tweak them afterwards?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other differences that I see when reading the "compatible" and "advanced" epub files on the Kobo (not recommended, obviously, but I was curious):
When reading the "compatible" epub, the phrase:
To them I say: "Pouf!" '
Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M.D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward.
renders as a series of boxes with X's in reading mode, but when I search for "Helsing" that line shows up just fine in the search results.
When viewing the "advanced" epub on the Kobo, both the hair space between quotes and the hair spaces in Van Helsing's degrees render correctly, but there is a problem with the phrase:
they touch—then pouf!
In reading mode, the phrase renders just fine, but when I search for the word "pouf" the search results show a blank box between "touch" and the em-dash.
I know that you have no control over how Kobo displays your files. I just thought you might like to know about these interesting errors.
Thanks again
Alex Cabal
May 31, 2022, 12:56:56 PM5/31/22
to standar...@googlegroups.com
Re. periods in chapter titles, Dracula is a book that went through
hundreds of editions in its history, and it is very common for different
editions of books to punctuate things differently, including periods
after chapter titles. PG may be using a different edition than we looked
at, or it might be a blend of editions. We're not trying to track PG on
what they did, or any particular print edition either.
Re. rendering of spaces, that depends entirely on the font you're using,
not the ereader. The font you selected may not have the nbsp or hair
space character, or it may be wider than expected. A box with a cross in
it means the character is missing from your font. Nothing we can do
about that, but you can try a different font. Our kepubs are generated
using our `se build` tool, not Calibre. (Though it does crib a portion
of the source of a Calibre plugin.)
> <http://7.7.2.1>: "Parts of a letter
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8f6ef419-d85d-4e8e-ba52-992ac1ff168an%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
hundreds of editions in its history, and it is very common for different
editions of books to punctuate things differently, including periods
after chapter titles. PG may be using a different edition than we looked
at, or it might be a blend of editions. We're not trying to track PG on
what they did, or any particular print edition either.
Re. rendering of spaces, that depends entirely on the font you're using,
not the ereader. The font you selected may not have the nbsp or hair
space character, or it may be wider than expected. A box with a cross in
it means the character is missing from your font. Nothing we can do
about that, but you can try a different font. Our kepubs are generated
using our `se build` tool, not Calibre. (Though it does crib a portion
of the source of a Calibre plugin.)
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/A4F36B5D-BE62-4E35-BA20-E8F5E11AF741%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
>
> --
> 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/8f6ef419-d85d-4e8e-ba52-992ac1ff168an%40googlegroups.com
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> To view this discussion on the web visit
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