Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche

[François Grandjean]

I'm about to start proofreading my latest production and expect to be done by the end of the week or sometimes during the next. Looking towards the near future, I'd like to work next on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

PG: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1998
Scans: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101906138

[Alex Cabal]

Sure. This one will be extremely difficult. The subject is dense and PG
appears to have dropped formatting. You'll have to convert all caps to
italics, and eyeball the page scans for italicized I. Good luck!

> <https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101906138>
>
> --
> 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/7f504208-6244-406f-a0fa-e03bc4babf1bn%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/7f504208-6244-406f-a0fa-e03bc4babf1bn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[C T]

There is an archive.org version of the Common translation available here:

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/169bc595-d5aa-8c4c-247a-18bb22474783%40standardebooks.org.

[C T]

Gah, control-enter. 

https://archive.org/details/cu31924087727057/page/n17/mode/2up

Might be easier than using the hathi trust scans to pull down the pdf.

[C T]

Thus Spake Zarathrustra sStarts on this page:

https://archive.org/details/cu31924087727057/page/n321/mode/2up

[François Grandjean]

I think I’ve found a good cover for this one.

Original (with CC0 proof): https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=19682

Once cropped and built, it would look like this:

I decided to avoid anything featuring people because I couldn’t find anything that felt okay for this book. I’ve tried animals, such as camels and lions (from the Three Metamorphoses), or eagles and snakes (the two animals of Zarathustra; respectively his pride and wisdom) but nothing that felt right.

I started looking for places, specifically mountains. I stumbled upon this one and knew that it was what I had been looking for. Mountains and high places are a recurring theme in the book, and specifically the idea of going under to be able to rise to a higher place. I like that the point of view seems to be from a cave and looks up towards a clear sky. There is also a bridge (natural or man-made?) which taps into the image that man is a bridge over an abyss that leads to the Overman (Superman in the Common translation). The scenery is rough, somewhat foreboding, which is another recurrent element of the book: to reach for the summit is a dangerous endeavour and it is common to fail—although it is the noblest of failures.

It isn’t oil, sadly, but watercolour. That said, we’ve already used a watercolour (from the same artist!) for She by H. Ridder Haggard, which is why I decided to propose this one.

What do you think?

[David Grigg]

I like it. We occasionally use watercolours if it’s not too obvious that they aren’t oil paintings. For example, the Turner cover for The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

As always, though, Alex has the final say on covers.

On 1 Apr 2021, 6:23 PM +1100, François Grandjean <francois....@gmail.com>, wrote:

I think I’ve found a good cover for this one.

Original (with CC0 proof): https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=19682
Once cropped and built, it would look like this:

[Alex Cabal]

I think this is a little too obviously a watercolor unfortunately. Looks
very much like a thin illustration. Paintings of mountains are a dime a
dozen, I'm sure you can find a suitable one--and remember you are not
limited to searching museum sites. You will have a much better selection
by searching wikiart or artvee and then fining a page scan.

On 4/1/21 2:23 AM, François Grandjean wrote:
> I think I’ve found a good cover for this one.
>
> Original (with CC0 proof):
> https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=19682
> <https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=19682>
>
> Once cropped and built, it would look like this:
>

> There is an archive.org <http://archive.org> version of the

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/7f504208-6244-406f-a0fa-e03bc4babf1bn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/7f504208-6244-406f-a0fa-e03bc4babf1bn%40googlegroups.com?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.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/169bc595-d5aa-8c4c-247a-18bb22474783%40standardebooks.org

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/169bc595-d5aa-8c4c-247a-18bb22474783%40standardebooks.org>.

>
> --
> 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/5e5cb6b4-a68d-41ce-a96f-5ba6d7f7ef9en%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/5e5cb6b4-a68d-41ce-a96f-5ba6d7f7ef9en%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

Argh! I was afraid of that.

The search continues. That book will take some more time and I have a few more stones to turn.

I had actually started my search on artvee and wikiart, and only now decided to look at museums, just in case.

[David Grigg]

François: if you get desperate, here’s one possibility:

https://rightword.com.au/gallery/2021/03/17/kosciusko-wc-piguenit/

I maintain this website to keep track of interesting potential covers I come across while looking for others. It’s my way of keeping track of art with PD proof, but any SE producer is welcome to use it.

[François Grandjean]

Nice one. I think I’ll keep looking for a bit longer (that book will take a while!) but I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for the offer.

[David Grigg]

Yes, I should keep in mind that however frustrating the search, there’s a real buzz when you find one that both is a good match to the theme and is provably PD. Good luck hunting!

--
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.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/545fa859-fa3e-4802-bb93-b8323037a88fn%40googlegroups.com.

[François Grandjean]

Before I get started in earnest, I need some guidance—and it requires some context first.

The transcription contains a preface and appendix. The preface can be found in all editions of the Thomas Common translation that I could find, but the appendix is only present in one of them.

I prefer to ask about the appendix later. I’ve only skimmed through it at this point. As for the preface, it was written by Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche’s sister.

There’s a rather interesting story here: while the two grew up close, it seems that they had a falling out when they both reached adulthood. Elizabeth became a proto-Nazi, and married a prominent anti-Semite. They attempted to create a “pure” German colony in Paraguay. It failed and her husband committed suicide rather than face bankruptcy and scandal. Soon after her return to Germany, her brother underwent the mental breakdown from which he never recovered and she became his guardian and literary executor.

From this point on, she tried to turn her brother into the national hero her late husband never became. She showcased his work in a nationalistic light, often at odds with his own writing—whether she didn’t understand his work or simply didn’t care to is open for debate. She even went as far as forging letters and documents as well as only releasing parts of unpublished manuscripts that would serve her ideology.

She’s the reason why Nietzsche has for so long been associated with Nazism and fascism. Rather tellingly, Adolf Hitler attended her funeral.

More information can be found here: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elisabeth-Forster-Nietzsche

Which brings me to my question: what should I do with her preface?

I’m against censorship and sanitisation; I believe that a work should stand on its own, no matter how problematic it can be at times. But here we have Nietzsche’s sister attempting to create her own legacy by exploiting and altering her brother’s.

I’m in favour of eschewing it altogether. I don’t believe that it brings anything interesting to the work and, besides, whatever anecdote Elizabeth can give about Nietzsche and his approach to Zarathustra is suspicious in light of her fraudulent actions.

We can also keep it as part of the historical work, possibly with a note briefly explaining this. Whatever the decision, this is something that should probably be part of the long description, but in the meantime I prefer to ask what to do with it.

[David Grigg]

Was the preface by Elizabeth in all editions? Given that the preface wasn’t written by Friedrich himself, I think you could argue that it’s not part of the work. That’s my thought, anyway.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com.

[Alex Cabal]

If it's clearly misrepresenting the actual work then we can cut it.
Introductory material from outside editors is only interesting to the
extent that it's actually accurate.

> Elizabeth can give about Nietzsche and his approach to /Zarathustra/ is

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/545fa859-fa3e-4802-bb93-b8323037a88fn%40googlegroups.com?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/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

Alright. I guess I’ll just excise it then.

David: The same preface appears in all editions of the Thomas Common translation I could find online. It is dated 1905, 5 years after Nietzsche’s death (although his mind had by then been gone for 11 years) so it definitely wasn’t part of the original work.

[François Grandjean]

Another proposal for the cover (with PD proof): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10158

Cropping only the mountain peak would give this:

Still the same idea of reaching for the highest point. Not as perilous as the other one although not easy by any means. Lofty and serene. It’s also painted during sunrise (although that’s rather subtle) which ties rather well with the beginning of the book.

Would this one work?

Fun fact: I found it first on Wikiart then discovered it was on the Met Museum site while searching for a higher quality image. That saved me the CC0 search.

[David Grigg]

Nice!

On 5 Apr 2021, 12:18 PM +1000, François Grandjean <francois....@gmail.com>, wrote:

Another proposal for the cover (with PD proof): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10158

Cropping only the mountain peak would give this:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b8fd31ee-2b74-4622-95f6-43484c51fa47n%40googlegroups.com.

[Alex Cabal]

That works, thanks!

On 4/4/21 9:18 PM, François Grandjean wrote:
> Another proposal for the cover (with PD proof):
> https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10158
> <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10158>
>
> Cropping only the mountain peak would give this:

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/545fa859-fa3e-4802-bb93-b8323037a88fn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/545fa859-fa3e-4802-bb93-b8323037a88fn%40googlegroups.com?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/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com>
>
> >

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/3b8e9529-5ad8-422a-be27-6876e8b5be40n%40googlegroups.com?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/b8fd31ee-2b74-4622-95f6-43484c51fa47n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b8fd31ee-2b74-4622-95f6-43484c51fa47n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

After the preface, the appendix. I’ve finally had time to read it and do some research about it.

It is part of the PG transcription but I’ve only seen it appear in a couple of editions.

It is a mixed bag: on one hand, it provides context for many passages, associates some characters with people like Schopenhauer or Wagner, and provides cogent points about how to approach Nietzsche’s philosophy, and this is quite welcome for a work of this density; on the other, the author, Anthony Ludovici, has his own agenda (pro-aristocracy, anti-democracy, and favourable towards racial purity, to name a few) and provides an interpretation that is quite often at odds with Nietzsche’s actual philosophy.

Here’s an example, to give an idea: Right in the introduction, he claims that Nietzsche condemns slave morality and advocates master morality. The truth is that Nietzsche found qualities and faults in both systems: Master morality encourages happiness and creativity but can also lead to excesses like cruelty or complacence, and while slave morality fosters weakness it can also lead to healthy practices such as introspection. Specifically, rather than focus on only one of those models, the Overman doesn’t hold on to any old morality system but creates his own and forges his own path ahead.

Having been written in 1909, it very much supports, and is based on, the idea of Nietzsche as a precursor to fascism and Nazism. This is, again, the image that Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche had developed and promoted, and it is no surprise that Ludovici mentions her and her brother’s “biography” and their importance to explain Zarathustra and his other books.

In my humble opinion, it falls into the same category as the preface, i.e., it misrepresents the book, at times in some spectacular ways. To be fair, it does contain some good parts, but they are constantly offset by a rather crude interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy. I’d rather leave it out and let Nietzsche speak for himself, but I prefer to confirm it first.

[Alex Cabal]

You can cut it, that's fine

> “biography” and their importance to explain /Zarathustra/ and his other

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b8fd31ee-2b74-4622-95f6-43484c51fa47n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/b8fd31ee-2b74-4622-95f6-43484c51fa47n%40googlegroups.com?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/23633dd4-d4c8-4089-b685-bea021c12a3an%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/23633dd4-d4c8-4089-b685-bea021c12a3an%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

Two questions, one probably easier than the other:

1. Some chapters are separated into smaller parts, typically with Arabic numerals (the prologue is one of them: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433070234277?urlappend=%3Bseq=33). How should they be handled? I assume we don’t want to use <h?> tags on these because that would add them to the ToC. I could instead use <p> tags and format them with a class since it will be reused several times through the book.

2. The Thomas Common translation is rather notorious for trying to faithfully translate the original German’s style into English with varied results—“baddest” being probably the least fortunate of all.

I found these scans on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.97441 This is from the 5th edition (1923) of the Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, overseen by Oscar Levy. Levy was one of the early champions of Nietzsche and did much to promote him in the UK at a time when his work was met with indifference. While previous editions of the Complete Works use the regular Common translation for Zarathustra, the 5th edition introduces some revisions by Levy and another collaborator, John L. Beevers.

Here is an example I’ve found, from chapter 58, part 2 (The Convalescent). Aside from being slightly easier to read it marks a difference between bad and evil, which is something Nietzsche insisted on and detailed in his other works:

Original:

And I myself—do I thereby want to be man's accuser? Ah, mine animals, this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his baddest is necessary for his best,—

—That all that is baddest is the best power, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better and badder :—

5th Edition:

And I myself—do I thereby want to be man's accuser? Ah, mine animals, this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his worst is necessary for his best,—

—That all that is worse is the best power, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better and more evil :—

I don’t know the extent of the revisions from the 5th edition of the Complete Works because there is very little I could find about it online. Every other edition of the Common translation uses the original text (that includes the PG transcript we have available), and it might be interesting to note that the 6th edition (1930) of the Complete Works goes back to the original, without a single word on the previous revisions.

I still have a fair amount of work to do on that book before even considering checking the differences between the two versions, but is it something we might be interested in? The few changes I noticed helped the text flow better while being minimal, but I don’t know yet the full extent of it all. Of course, that’d be a fair amount of work, but I’m up for it.

[Vince]

1. Alex will have to answer definitively, but that’s a fairly common thing, and we do typically use different sections and h# for them, and they do appear in the ToC. See Lord Tony’s Wife, e.g. (There are lots of others.)

[David Grigg]

The Prologue to The Moonstone, as I recall, also has sub-chapters. If you use the sectioning correctly, se print-toc will nest everything neatly in the Table of Contents.

--
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.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/0EF64751-39C5-4015-BB31-576623E3FE0A%40letterboxes.org.

[François Grandjean]

Fantastic. Thank you both: that’s exactly what I needed. I had looked in the corpus for books with similar structure but couldn’t find any.

[Alex Cabal]

If the 6th edition, also overseen by Levy, undid his own changes, then
we should do the same. Otherwise, it would be useful to get an idea of
exactly how the 5th edition differs from previous editions.

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/23633dd4-d4c8-4089-b685-bea021c12a3an%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/23633dd4-d4c8-4089-b685-bea021c12a3an%40googlegroups.com?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/87aadfb8-8428-47fe-94a7-085111666ac4n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/87aadfb8-8428-47fe-94a7-085111666ac4n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

I wonder why the 6th edition reverted those changes. It is rather frustrating that I can’t find anything else on that topic.

I’ll continue to treat the book as “classic” Common while I work on it. I’ll see if I can list all changes and we can then decide if they are worth incorporating or not.

[François Grandjean]

Typography in Zarathustra is a bit peculiar. Nietzsche was an admirer of Lawrence Sterne and also tried to use dashes to give some musical rhythm to the text.

The PG transcription did away with many of those so I’ve restored them from the scan. Typogrify isn’t happy about it but I expected it and wrote a production note about it.

Another peculiarity is about quotation marks. There long dialogues, spanning several paragraphs, that only have a “at the beginning and at ” at the end, while normally each paragraph would begin with a “ and there would be a single ” only at the end of the speech. This is the same in the transcription and scans. Lint obviously obviously complains about it and in different ways. In this case, it doesn’t really seem to add anything to the text and even makes it difficult to see if a dialogue is still ongoing or finished earlier. I even wonder if it isn’t an archaism. Should I leave them like that (and add a huge list of exception to se-lint-ignore.xml) or is it okay to add a “ at the beginning of each concerned paragraph?

[Alex Cabal]

Well, typically we remove two em dashes as a matter of course, unless
it's something like Sterne where it's really an in-your-face part of the
prose. When I did Beyond Good and Evil I didn't get that impression so I
would assume this one is the same. And in any case it's filtered through
a translation already anyway.

You can add a quote to each paragraph, that's fine.

> <https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433070234277?urlappend=%3Bseq=33>).

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/87aadfb8-8428-47fe-94a7-085111666ac4n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/87aadfb8-8428-47fe-94a7-085111666ac4n%40googlegroups.com?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/dd63ca18-4fb9-4ed5-b636-b829cca9afffn%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/dd63ca18-4fb9-4ed5-b636-b829cca9afffn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil cover the same ideas but in completely different styles. Nietzsche wrote the latter as more standard work of philosophy because the former confused readers. It is meant to be a work of literature and aesthetics with some parts even designed to be read with a certain rhythm. That’s the purpose of several two-em-dashes and even a three-em-dash at some points in the text. As you said, that depends a lot on the translator and some do throw them away. From what I understand of Thomas Common, he did pay attention to that aspect and kept them in his translation.

The fact that it reads like music is actually the reason why Zarathustra has inspired several composers. Richard Strauss is the most obvious one, but there is also Gustav Mahler (who had fair bit to say about the book and its relation to music) and Frederick Delius amongst the biggest names.

[François Grandjean]

While working on the book, I took time to check the differences between the regular Common translation and the revised fifth edition. I didn’t complete it but did enough to get a good idea of what sets them apart. While parts of the revised edition do read better, others are more problematic. Some words are replaced with synonyms, probably to avoid repetitions, but the text is deliberately full of repetitions as part of Nietzsche’s attempt to emulate music, and Common did try to keep that. Some substitutions are also on the dubious side, e.g., in chapter 40, “fire-dog” is replaced by “fire-dragon”. I can’t read the original German, but every other translation I’ve checked, including the French one I normally read, refer to the creature as a dog and not a dragon—it could also potentially cause confusion with the dragon that appears several times in the book as the avatar of the weight of traditions and commandments.

So. We just keep things as they are. I don’t need to do extra work on the book and we know the version we have is the better one.

By the way, some words are joined by hyphens, such as “fire-isle” or “fire-dog” (se modernize-spelling tried to remove the hyphen on that one but it is a creature, not part of a fireplace). Would it be okay to remove the hyphen and separate those with a space as an editorial commit?

[Alex Cabal]

Yes, leave the edition as it is. There are going to be pros and cons
whenever comparing editions but doing big reediting work, especially
with something as complex as this, isn't something we want to be doing.

I would leave the hyphenation as-is too. Remember to run the new `se
find-mismatched-dashes` command to normalize them if necessary.

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/dd63ca18-4fb9-4ed5-b636-b829cca9afffn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/dd63ca18-4fb9-4ed5-b636-b829cca9afffn%40googlegroups.com?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/38548050-d14f-4af5-a103-286692c18639n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/38548050-d14f-4af5-a103-286692c18639n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

You’re right! I ran the updated tools but somehow forgot about the new one. Thanks for reminding me.

[François Grandjean]

My last post in this thread ended up being posted elsewhere. Either there was a bug with Google Groups or I managed to mess things up (sorry!). In any case, I’m reposting my message and Alex’s reply for the sake of continuity. No need to answer this.

My message:

> Another question about hyphens: what about “finger’s-breadth”?

> Nietzsche was rather fond of compound words. They translate somewhat naturally to English with hyphens, e.g., “beggar-virtue”. But then we have those that mix hyphens with possessive forms, which I find rather jarring because it overstretches English usage.

> Translators have handled these compound words differently: Common decided to keep them in all circumstances, some dropped most of them, but others like Graham Parkes decided to keep the hyphens but drop them when they would be mixed with the possessive (“father’s-pain”, “tyrant’s-madness”, etc.).

Alex’s answer:

> I would just leave them as-is

[François Grandjean]

Thus Spake Zarathustra is now ready for review!

Repo: https://github.com/Gragt/friedrich-nietzsche_thus-spake-zarathustra_thomas-common

Working on it was quite the challenge, as expected, but also rewarding.

A few notes, most of which have already been touched upon in this thread but repeated her for the sake of convenience:

Nietzsche’s style is idiosyncratic. The text is full of em dashes, two-em-dashes, and even a three-em-dash, that are supposed to add musicality to the text—some smarter people than me have written about it, including Gustav Mahler. Thomas Common, the translator, decided to keep them so I’ve restored them from the scans. Typogrify will try and convert them to regular em-dashes and/or add (or remove) special characters around them. For this case, obviously not covered in the manual, I’ve decided to treat them like regular em dashes preceded by a word joiner.

Some words are stretched out by a non-breaking hyphen and typogrify attempts to convert them back to regular hyphens.

Dialogues often stretch out for many paragraphs without any quotation marks. Lint complains about that behaviour and it makes it more difficult to read so I’ve added an opening quote at the beginning of these paragraphs (Alex gave his okay). Some monologues do not have any quotation marks at all and I’ve left those untouched.

The original text uses many compound words which translate to English with hyphens. Those have been left mostly untouched (including those that mix hyphens with possessive form!) except those cases flagged by modernize-spelling. Speaking of which, three instances were incorrectly converted; I’ve changed them back with a production note to identify them.

Parts 2, 3, and 4 begin with a quote (from the same book). I’ve never done those before; I think I got them right but let me know if I need to fix something.

Long description is long. The topic seemed to warrant it and I tried to stick as much as possible to the book. (The initial draft was much longer!)

I had initially created a class to center some text in a song in chapter 59, until I remembered it is possible to use “odd” with the nth-of-class selector, which made me feel all clever.

[Alex Cabal]

Robin given the dashes and your work on Stern would you like to review this?

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/38548050-d14f-4af5-a103-286692c18639n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/38548050-d14f-4af5-a103-286692c18639n%40googlegroups.com?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/2bbf6eab-a4ce-47bd-a86e-7a4578f76205n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/2bbf6eab-a4ce-47bd-a86e-7a4578f76205n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Robin Whittleton]

Sure, always up for a challenge :)

> On 7 Jul 2021, at 03:00, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:
>
> Robin given the dashes and your work on Stern would you like to review this?

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8933a5f0-9324-9745-3a7b-b2bb0f601540%40standardebooks.org.

[Robin Whittleton]

To be honest, I was struggling to find anything really to fix here, great job. In the end, my list is:

• Blockquotes in parts should presumably be epigraphs. Take a look at Sterne: https://github.com/standardebooks/laurence-sterne_the-life-and-opinions-of-tristram-shandy-gentleman/blob/master/src/epub/text/part-3.xhtml and CSS at https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.6.1/single-page#7.4
• Should the prologue also have a chapter semantic if it has subchapters? They’re described in the spec as ”A major sub-division of a chapter.”
• The first song in chapter 76 is missing <br/>s after each line.
• A couple of warnings are being thrown up by lint (t-042 possible typos in chapters 12 and 56) but I think they’re false positives. Investigate?

-Robin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/2bbf6eab-a4ce-47bd-a86e-7a4578f76205n%40googlegroups.com.

[François Grandjean]

Thank you, Robin. Let me have a butcher’s at these.

[François Grandjean]

Alright, that should do it. In the order that you listed them:

• This is exactly why I needed someone else to look at these.
• I had assumed that a prologue would automatically be considered as a chapter, but checking the epub specs after reading your comment has changed my perspective. I’ve changed the section tag to <section id="prologue" epub:type="chapter prologue">. I don’t think that having them both creates a conflict, but let me know if it needs to be changed.
• Oops! Songs in this book are rather complex. I’ve spent so much time on them that this one simply escaped me.
• This happens only in the development version of the toolset—the stable release didn’t give me these errors. Both are actually the same error: the capitalisation of For because it refers to a concept and used as a noun in this context. I’ve added the corresponding entries to se-lint-ignore.

While I prefer to use the stable release of the toolset when producing a book, the last one makes me think I should probably upgrade to the development version and run the ultimate check with it.

All done and pushed! Let me know if there is anything else to change.

[Alex Cabal]

Re. subchapters, they should only occur in actual chapters. For other
sections that are not chapters but have subsections, plain <section> is
fine. So I would not add the chapter semantic to the prologue, and I
would remove the subchapter semantics.

On 7/8/21 3:48 PM, François Grandjean wrote:
> Alright, that should do it. In the order that you listed them:
>

> * This is exactly why I needed someone else to look at these.
> * I had assumed that a prologue would automatically be considered as a

> chapter, but checking the epub specs after reading your comment has
> changed my perspective. I’ve changed the section tag to <section
> id="prologue" epub:type="chapter prologue">. I don’t think that
> having them both creates a conflict, but let me know if it needs to
> be changed.

> * Oops! Songs in this book are rather complex. I’ve spent so much time

> on them that this one simply escaped me.

> * This happens only in the development version of the toolset—the

> stable release didn’t give me these errors. Both are actually the
> same error: the capitalisation of For because it refers to a concept
> and used as a noun in this context. I’ve added the corresponding
> entries to se-lint-ignore.
>
> While I prefer to use the stable release of the toolset when producing a
> book, the last one makes me think I should probably upgrade to the
> development version and run the ultimate check with it.
>
> All done and pushed! Let me know if there is anything else to change.
>
> On Thursday, 8 July 2021 at 14:36:03 UTC-5 François Grandjean wrote:
>
> Thank you, Robin. Let me have a butcher’s at these.
>
> On Thursday, 8 July 2021 at 14:33:11 UTC-5 robin wrote:
>
> To be honest, I was struggling to find anything really to fix
> here, great job. In the end, my list is:
>

> * Blockquotes in parts should presumably be epigraphs. Take a

> look at Sterne:
> https://github.com/standardebooks/laurence-sterne_the-life-and-opinions-of-tristram-shandy-gentleman/blob/master/src/epub/text/part-3.xhtml
> <https://github.com/standardebooks/laurence-sterne_the-life-and-opinions-of-tristram-shandy-gentleman/blob/master/src/epub/text/part-3.xhtml> and
> CSS at
> https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.6.1/single-page#7.4

> <https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.6.1/single-page#7.4>
> * Should the prologue also have a chapter semantic if it has

> subchapters? They’re described in the spec as ”A major
> sub-division of a chapter.”

> * The first song in chapter 76 is missing <br/>s after each line.
> * A couple of warnings are being thrown up by lint (t-042

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/38548050-d14f-4af5-a103-286692c18639n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/38548050-d14f-4af5-a103-286692c18639n%40googlegroups.com?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 tostandardebook...@googlegroups.com.

>> To view this discussion on the web

>> visithttps://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/2bbf6eab-a4ce-47bd-a86e-7a4578f76205n%40googlegroups.com
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/2bbf6eab-a4ce-47bd-a86e-7a4578f76205n%40googlegroups.com?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/9ea6c4f3-97e5-4394-8b26-b2aafdb04eeen%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9ea6c4f3-97e5-4394-8b26-b2aafdb04eeen%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Robin Whittleton]

Good to know. Apart from that Alex this is ready for release in my eyes.

-Robin

[François Grandjean]

Got it, Alex!

I’ve removed chapter and subchapter semantics from the prologue but left the sections, so they went from, e.g., <section id="prologue-1" epub:type="z3998:subchapter"> to <section id="prologue-1">.

All pushed, once more.

[Alex Cabal]

This ebook was produced by François Grandjean. Thanks François!

Ebook URL:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/friedrich-nietzsche/thus-spake-zarathustra/thomas-common

GitHub URL:
https://github.com/standardebooks/friedrich-nietzsche_thus-spake-zarathustra_thomas-common

[Alex Cabal]

Great, everything looks good and I've gone ahead and released it.
Excellent work François, this was a complicated book. Very good long
description too. I trimmed it slightly, because we don't want long
descriptions to become author biographies--that kind of thing winds up
being repetitive across the author's corpus, so we want the descriptions
to be about the book and not the author. But excellent detail and
history, thanks!

> --
> 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/79fe15e1-12bd-4d37-8fbd-9a2158d22ad9n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/79fe15e1-12bd-4d37-8fbd-9a2158d22ad9n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[François Grandjean]

Thanks, Alex. And yes, I had been trying to focus on the book in the description but it is a case where the author’s life is so entwined with the creation of the book that it was difficult to leave some things out—it even used to be even longer. I figured you’d be the best to decide what to keep.

[Jared Updike]

There appears to be a small typo in the long description:

some of which been updated over time

->

some of which have been updated over time

Perhaps?

  Jared.

[François Grandjean]

By Gum, you're right! I've opened a pull request with your change. Thanks!