[First Project] The Necromancers, by Robert Hugh Benson

[Effie Allen]

Hey! Thought I'd take a stab at producing a book, and The Necromancers is a recommended Wanted List option.

Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14275

Scan link: https://archive.org/details/TheNecromancers1917/mode/2up

Thanks.

[Alex Cabal]

Great, that one would be a good start.

Cut all the front matter in the PG edition except the dedication. Since
there's a dedication, you'll have to add a half title page.

The chapters each have subchapters, which will be a sub <section> of the
main chapter. Scene breaks can be done with <hr/>.

Make sure to read the Standard Ebooks Manual of Style before starting,
as you won't know what to fix if you haven't read the standards. In
particular, please closely review the semantics, high level patterns,
and typography sections:

https://standardebooks.org/manual

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/4-semantics

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/7-high-level-structural-patterns

https://standardebooks.org/manual/latest/8-typography

The step by step guide will take you from start to finish. Please follow
it exactly:

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producing-an-ebook-step-by-step

This page on common issues in older books may be useful:

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/common-issues-when-working-on-public-domain-ebooks

Please email often if you have any questions at all. Our standards are
well-established so there is probably already a standard for formatting
whatever problem you've encountered.

When you're ready, email back with a link to your Github repository so
that I can assign you a manager and reviewer.

Have fun! :)

On 4/23/26 10:43 PM, Effie Allen wrote:
> Hey! Thought I'd take a stab at producing a book, and The Necromancers
> is a recommended Wanted List option.
>

> Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14275 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14275>
> Scan link: https://archive.org/details/TheNecromancers1917/mode/2up
> <https://archive.org/details/TheNecromancers1917/mode/2up>
>
> Thanks.
>
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[Effie Allen]

Here's the Github link: https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh-benson_the-necromancer

[Effie Allen]

I picked the scan I linked above because it had a clear copyright notice, but it uses American spelling throughout. This does match the Gutenberg ebook, but does not match a scan of an earlier edition ( https://archive.org/details/necromancers00bensuoft/page/n5/mode/2up ) that uses British spelling - although it just says '1909' instead of specifying anything to do with copyright. Should I stick with what Gutenberg has, or correct to match the earlier edition's scan?

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Weijia will manage with David reviewing.

On 4/27/26 2:16 AM, Effie Allen wrote:
> Here's the Github link: https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh-

> benson_the-necromancer <https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh-
> benson_the-necromancers>

>
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[Alex Cabal]

Spelling doesn't matter, this is a common situation as books were
frequently published both in England and the US. Sticking to the PG
transcription is the easiest way forward.

> Here's the Github link: https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh-
> benson_the-necromancer <https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh-
> benson_the-necromancers>
>

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[Effie Allen]

What's a good point of reference for semantically tagging the inscription on a gravestone? As on page 114 of the scan link.

[Effie Allen]

Same question for the "syllogism" on page 117, if it particularly needs anything other than <hr>.

[Effie Allen]

I'll start compressing questions into single emails 😄

On page 339 of the scan link, there's "the landlord himself came to the door to give the great Mr. Nugent [...] a last good-night", where "good-night" is a noun referring to the phrase, rather than being the phrase itself. modernize-spelling wants to remove the hyphen, but "give the great Mr. Nugent [...] a last good night" doesn't read to me as though it's a noun referring to the phrase. Would it be best to keep the hyphen? Or maybe wrap 'good night' in single quotes?

Separately, in case anyone's looking at the repo, I'm likely to restart next time I sit down to work on this. I got turned around with a couple of steps early in the guide. For future reference, does it present a problem if I split the "Manually add additional semantics" commit at the end of step 14 into smaller, targeted commits?

[Asher Smith]

You'll be putting the gravestone inscription in a blockquote. There's not an entry in the z3998 vocabulary or the SE vocabulary for things like headstones - they're not a specific name of a thing, so you don't put semantic tags on the blockquote in that way. You can have a look at SEMoS 5.2.1 for an example of how you can put CSS on the blockquote to style it right; that example is a business card, but the same general principles will apply.

You won't be using <hr> for the syllogism; you would use that more for a significant break in a chapter, not for a small interruption like that. I think that would just get a standard <blockquote>, and you might not need to add any additional CSS, depending on how it looks.

Generally speaking, breaking a commit into smaller commits is fine; you're more likely to run into issues if you combine too many things into one commit, especially if some of them need to be [Editorial] and others don't.

I would remove that hyphen and then leave it as-is. I don't personally see anything wrong with the resultant sentence with it removed, though of course Weija might disagree.

[Alex Cabal]

In the future, please send direct links to page scans for the page
you're referring to, so we don't have to go digging. Thanks!

On 4/29/26 9:27 PM, Effie Allen wrote:
> Same question for the "syllogism" on page 117, if it particularly needs
> anything other than <hr>.
>
> On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 12:14:41 PM UTC+10 Effie Allen wrote:
>
> What's a good point of reference for semantically tagging the
> inscription on a gravestone? As on page 114 of the scan link.
>
> On Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 5:45:34 AM UTC+10 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Spelling doesn't matter, this is a common situation as books were
> frequently published both in England and the US. Sticking to the PG
> transcription is the easiest way forward.
>
> On 4/27/26 3:21 AM, Effie Allen wrote:
> > I picked the scan I linked above because it had a clear
> copyright
> > notice, but it uses American spelling throughout. This does
> match the
> > Gutenberg ebook, but does not match a scan of an earlier edition
> > ( https://archive.org/details/necromancers00bensuoft/page/n5/
> mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/necromancers00bensuoft/
> page/n5/mode/2up>

> > <https://archive.org/details/necromancers00bensuoft/page/n5/
> mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/necromancers00bensuoft/

> page/n5/mode/2up>> )
> > that uses British spelling - although it just says '1909'
> instead of
> > specifying anything to do with copyright. Should I stick with
> what
> > Gutenberg has, or correct to match the earlier edition's scan?
> > On Monday, April 27, 2026 at 5:16:04 PM UTC+10 Effie Allen
> wrote:
> >
> > Here's the Github link: https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-

> hugh- <https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh->
> > benson_the-necromancer <https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-
> hugh- <https://github.com/Esbylion/robert-hugh->

> > benson_the-necromancers>
> >
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[Effie Allen]

- Should I match subchapter headings exactly to the scan? That is, numbering them all except for the first within each chapter? (No heading on first subchapter, heading on second subchapter).

- The letter in Chapter 5 (link) includes a small amount of narration within the text of the letter. I've found an example of the same from a previous Standard release (link), so I've imitated that, but I wanted to bring it up for extra scrutiny.

- Similarly, I've imitated this example for the grave marker. (link)

[David]

It would be good to know Weijia's thoughts on these, but for the moment:

1. In a couple of my productions, I have added the `I` for the "unmarked" first subchapter in these cases (in an [Editorial] commit). That seemed to work best for the ToC, and makes sense of the "II", "III", etc., as well. (You'll need to ensure the correct `section` wrappers are used, too.)

2. Again, when breaking "inline narrative" out of otherwise blockquote material, I've done that in an [Editorial] commit. (In Trollope's letters this happens frequently.) 

3. I take it the grave marker is the one on p103? Your precedent should work (no need for the language semantics, of course), and the styling in its local.css looks adequate (unless you wanted to use `font-variant: all-small-caps;`). The text itself should be in whatever is normal-case.

David / Fife, UK

[Weijia Cheng]

Oops, I missed that I was managing this earlier.

1. I agree with adding the label for th first subchapter.

2. I agree with David. You can break it out in an editorial commit.

3. Yes, the CSS in that book looks fine, though as David pointed out you can use all-small-caps to replicate the appearance in the scans.

[Effie Allen]

- Should Spiritualist concepts, e.g. "Higher Light" and "Deeper Unity" on page 30 (link), remain capitalized? I would leave them capitalized when they're used more than once, but it's tricky to separate them from all the archaic Capitalization to Emphasize Nouns

- Is the <time> element only used for dates in the colophon and letters?
- I'd appreciate someone taking a quick glance at the repository to confirm that I'm not wildly off-track, if anyone feels like doing so, before I move into Step 15's textual changes.

[Weijia Cheng]

1. I think you should keep those capitalized.

2. Some producers add <time>s in other contexts but it is not necessary unless you are being extra scrupulous. Usually I only add new <time> elements when they are part of a larger structural element or when the formatting calls for it.

3. It looks alright so far.

[Effie Allen]

More capitalization and spelling questions:

- "planchette" (link) (link) is treated as a proper noun throughout, with inconsistent capitalization. Merriam-Webster doesn't treat it as a proper noun. Would "Planchette", "planchette" or "a planchette" be best?

- "the prophet Jonas" (link) would be better understood to modern audiences as "the prophet Jonah", I'd think (Ngram viewer link). Is that worth changing?
- There's a couple of instances of quotes around place names (link) (link) that I can't see a reason for. Should I remove the quotes?

[Weijia Cheng]

1. You can standardize the capitalization.

2. No, it's not a sound-alike change. "Jonas" is a slightly different name (it reflects the Greek and Latin versions of the name).

3. You can remove the quotes in an editorial commit.

[Effie Allen]

I'll start proofreading next. I've been looking into cover image options;

- This (link). It doesn't as a whole match any specific scene from the book, but I think the environment, character, and tone all fit.
- Or, this (link). It's a little more generic, but the open door with the anonymous figure behind it is a relevant image.

I've attached a couple of mockups.

[Weijia Cheng]

Both of them look fine. Let me know which you end up going with.