[Next Project] The Sundering Flood by William Morris

[Jason Livermore]

I'd like to do another William Morris fantasy.  Latest PD date that I found on IA is 1914, in two volumes.

PG: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25547
IA: https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood01morruoft
IA: https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood02morruoft

They omit the map.  This 1897 edition seems to have good detail and resolution.

https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood00morrrich/page/n13/mode/2up

[Alex Cabal]

OK, sounds good. The map can be a frontispiece that you will have to
convert to SVG. See
https://standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/how-to-create-svgs-from-maps-with-several-colors

Send a link to your repo once you start. Thanks!

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[Jason Livermore]

Here is the repo: https://github.com/javamanatee/william-morris_the-sundering-flood

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Vince will manage with Emma reviewing.

On 1/21/26 11:32 AM, Jason Livermore wrote:
> Here is the repo: https://github.com/javamanatee/william-morris_the-
> sundering-flood
>
>
> On Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 9:15:12 PM UTC-6 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK, sounds good. The map can be a frontispiece that you will have to
> convert to SVG. See
> https://standardebooks.org/contribute/how-tos/how-to-create-svgs-

> from-maps-with-several-colors <https://standardebooks.org/
> contribute/how-tos/how-to-create-svgs-from-maps-with-several-colors>

>
> Send a link to your repo once you start. Thanks!
>
> On 1/20/26 6:25 PM, Jason Livermore wrote:
> > I'd like to do another William Morris fantasy.  Latest PD date
> that I
> > found on IA is 1914, in two volumes.
> >

> > PG: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25547 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25547>
> > IA: https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood01morruoft

> <https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood01morruoft>
> > IA: https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood02morruoft
> <https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood02morruoft>
> >
> > They omit the map.  This 1897 edition seems to have good detail and
> > resolution.
> > https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood00morrrich/page/n13/

> mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood00morrrich/page/
> n13/mode/2up>

> >
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[Jason Livermore]

Hi Vince.  Sprinkled through the text are words or phrases in square brackets.  These are in the transcription as well as the scan that I'm using from 1914.  These brackets do not appear in earlier editions back to the original printing.  My guess is that the editor decided to note diffs against the original MS -- the work was edited by Morris's daughter and published after his death, and she would have made small changes and corrections.  Another thing, in ch. 65 there is a Song header with a footnote saying the song was not written.  So a header with no song.  That header and note do not appear in other versions.  So I think I should just get rid of the brackets and the Song header/note, as they aren't needed.  I did not see any notes explaining the brackets.  Thoughts?

Song header and note

https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood02morruoft/page/150/mode/1up

Brackets example

  after he had a word with [the Knight] Sir Medard, apart

1914 scan: https://archive.org/details/sunderingflood01morruoft/page/102/mode/1up

[Vince]

It doesn’t appear to be that easy. The biographical note here in the edition that appears in his collected works lists five printings, of which you’re using the scans of the fourth, and the note itself is in the fifth, which also has the brackets. It also has an introduction from his daughter that speaks a little of the corrections, although she doesn’t mention (or at least I didn’t catch it if she did) these brackets specifically. She does mention brackets at the end of the story, so it would be worth reading that portion of the introduction and seeing what she’s referring to and then review that text.

But, e.g., the bracketed sentence in chapter 9 does not appear in the first three printed editions; it doesn’t show up until the edition you’re using, and is also in the collected works edition.

It’s kind of an odd situation, but in the interest of the “general reader” who is our target audience, I guess I see no reason to retain the brackets or the missing song title and note (with the caveat above about checking what she refers to at the end).

[Alex Cabal]

This situation would definitely be worth talking about in the long
description

On 2/14/26 5:30 PM, Vince wrote:
> It doesn’t appear to be that easy. The biographical note here <https://
> archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.184109/page/n33/mode/2up> in the

>> page/102/mode/1up <https://archive.org/details/
>> sunderingflood01morruoft/page/102/mode/1up>

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[Jason Livermore]

Good find Vince.  I did not dig far enough to find that.  To summarize what I have gleaned:

- Daughter describes some discrepancies about compass directions that don't make sense, she made changes in a couple of places.  I do not see these bracketed.

- Daughter added some interpolation in chapter 64 to explain how the women get from the west side of the flood to the east side.  These additions are in brackets, as stated by the daughter.

- The sentence in chapter 9 "and it were not amiss..." is not missing, it appears before the last sentence in the paragraph, and was later moved to the end of the paragraph.

- Nothing is said about the unwritten song.

- Daughter states  "...I am bound to follow my own instinct in the matter, and to present the text of the posthumous work with any such necessary corrections properly indicated." Which implies the brackets without saying explicitly.  As mentioned, this was only done starting with the 4th printing.

Lots of interesting background, I'll include something in the long description.

[Jason Livermore]

Looking for a Flood that looked Sundering, I found this at the Finnish National Gallery, CC0.

https://www.kansallisgalleria.fi/en/object/526859

[Vince]

Looks good. For that tight a crop, you’re going to need a higher resolution source. I found one on Wikimedia, and it’s the one I uploaded to the artwork db. See how that looks with your crop; if it’s still a little fuzzy, you might need to run it thrugh an uprezzer.

On Feb 16, 2026, at 6:21 PM, Jason Livermore <jason.l...@gmail.com> wrote:

Looking for a Flood that looked Sundering, I found this at the Finnish National Gallery, CC0.

https://www.kansallisgalleria.fi/en/object/526859

<sundering cover screenshot.png>

[Jason Livermore]

Emma, this is ready for you.

https://github.com/javamanatee/william-morris_the-sundering-flood

[Emma Sweeney]

Great work! I filed a couple minor issues in the repository.

Emma