[Next production] Jonathan Swift - Essays

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Robin Whittleton

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Sep 5, 2026, 7:22:38 AMSep 5
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I volunteered to produce the patron pick this month, and they went for Jonathan Swift’s Essays. This is going to be a fairly complex production as Swift’s pen ranged across a bunch of subjects, but I’m putting together a spreadsheet. I expect I’ll continue making choices during production as I read through a bunch of his work as to whether to include it or not, but the spreadsheet will document that. There’s a bunch of transcriptions on PG but I expect I’ll be pulling from a load of different places for this.

Repo is at https://github.com/robinwhittleton/jonathan-swift_essays.

For cover art, I found a nice painting of him by Charles Jevens, which I’ve uploaded to the artworks DB at https://standardebooks.org/artworks/charles-jervas/jonathan-swift.

-Robin

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Robin Whittleton

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Sep 6, 2026, 12:46:59 PMSep 6
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OK, my first stab at a Swift essay corpus is at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P1aVN39AB45lpauaClk2tFxfKmWBggSXRO0IZOLEk9A/

As I suggested earlier, this is going to be tricky to get right. This selection was pulled from the 16(!) volumes of The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift published in 1766. There’s a vast amount of stuff that doesn’t fit into our collection policy (my production-notes.md file currently mentions that we’re not including “prayers, sermons, most letters, political reports of the day, political pamphlets, poems, memoirs, biographies, and most newspaper op-eds”).

Then there’s a bunch of stuff that was either written by Swift under a pseudonym or possibly not by Swift at all. This is at least partially detailed at https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-supplement-to-dr-swif_swift-jonathan_1776_2/page/468/mode/2up.

If you look at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Jonathan_Swift/Essays it’ll give you some idea of the sort of thing I’m omitting. For example, “An Account of the Court of Japan” is left out for being ”Histories that aren’t otherwise notable” as per the collections policy, ”On the Death of Mrs. Johnson” for being in the category “biographies of long-forgotten people that aren’t notable”, and ”A Letter to a Young Clergyman” for falling into the catch-all “Dated non-fiction that isn’t relevant to a modern reader”. Super happy to hear people’s thoughts on this.

There is one that I’ve listed but I think I won’t do: ”A modest address to the wicked authors of the present age. Particularly the authors of Christianity not founded on argument; and of The resurrection of Jesus considered”. It’s 26k words, I can’t find any transcriptions, and the scans are of a poor enough quality to preclude OCR.

Do we agree with this as it stands? I’ll get started if so.

-Robin

P. S. I’d love to include the satirical “The Benefit of Farting Explained” but the scan don’t have a date and the notes have it as being of uncertain authorship. Shame.

-Robin

<thumbnail_d151f235b5400219596efaaac1ba7f62d22ffbf3_EBOK_portrait.jpg>

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Robin Whittleton

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Sep 6, 2026, 1:35:05 PMSep 6
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Literally as I mentioned “The Benefit of Farting Exolained” PG released a transcription 😄 Guess that proves PD: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79520

On 6 Sep 2026, at 18:47, Robin Whittleton <ro...@reala.net> wrote:

Alex Cabal

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Sep 6, 2026, 2:56:23 PMSep 6
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Ok, Weijia will manage with Vince reviewing.

On 9/5/26 6:22 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> I volunteered to produce the patron pick this month, and they went for
> Jonathan Swift’s /Essays/ <https://standardebooks.org/polls/patrons-
> circle-september-2026-selection/votes>/./ This is going to be a fairly
> complex production as Swift’s pen ranged across a bunch of subjects, but
> I’m putting together a spreadsheet. I expect I’ll continue making
> choices during production as I read through a bunch of his work as to
> whether to include it or not, but the spreadsheet will document that.
> There’s a bunch of transcriptions on PG but I expect I’ll be pulling
> from a load of different places for this.
>
> Repo is at https://github.com/robinwhittleton/jonathan-swift_essays
> <https://github.com/robinwhittleton/jonathan-swift_essays>.
>
> For cover art, I found a nice painting of him by Charles Jevens, which
> I’ve uploaded to the artworks DB at https://standardebooks.org/artworks/
> charles-jervas/jonathan-swift <https://standardebooks.org/artworks/
> charles-jervas/jonathan-swift>.
>
> -Robin
>
> thumbnail_d151f235b5400219596efaaac1ba7f62d22ffbf3_EBOK_portrait.jpg
>
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Alex Cabal

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Sep 6, 2026, 3:03:42 PMSep 6
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Great work. In these spreadsheets, we want to include *everything*, and
items which we won't collect simply don't get an omnibus title. This
lets us know in the future that we considered all of these entries and
declined them, so we don't have to re-do this research if someone asks
about it in the future.

You can include "modest address" in the spreadsheet, mark it as
belonging in the omnibus, but make a note that there is no transcription
and the scans are bad.

On 9/6/26 11:46 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> OK, my first stab at a Swift essay corpus is at https://docs.google.com/
> spreadsheets/d/1P1aVN39AB45lpauaClk2tFxfKmWBggSXRO0IZOLEk9A/ <https://
> docs.google.com/spreadsheets/
> d/1P1aVN39AB45lpauaClk2tFxfKmWBggSXRO0IZOLEk9A/>
>
> As I suggested earlier, this is going to be tricky to get right. This
> selection was pulled from the 16(!) volumes of /The Works of Dr.
> Jonathan Swift/ published in 1766. There’s a vast amount of stuff that
> doesn’t fit into our collection policy (my production-notes.md file
> currently mentions that we’re not including “prayers, sermons, most
> letters, political reports of the day, political pamphlets, poems,
> memoirs, biographies, and most newspaper op-eds”).
>
> Then there’s a bunch of stuff that was either written by Swift under a
> pseudonym or possibly not by Swift at all. This is at least partially
> detailed at https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-
> supplement-to-dr-swif_swift-jonathan_1776_2/page/468/mode/2up <https://
> archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-supplement-to-dr-
> swif_swift-jonathan_1776_2/page/468/mode/2up>.
> Essays <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Jonathan_Swift/
> Essays> it’ll give you some idea of the sort of thing I’m omitting. For
> example, “An Account of the Court of Japan” is left out for being
> ”Histories that aren’t otherwise notable” as per the collections policy,
> ”On the Death of Mrs. Johnson” for being in the category “biographies of
> long-forgotten people that aren’t notable”, and ”A Letter to a Young
> Clergyman” for falling into the catch-all “Dated non-fiction that isn’t
> relevant to a modern reader”. Super happy to hear people’s thoughts on this.
>
> There is one that I’ve listed but I think I won’t do: ”A modest address
> to the wicked authors of the present age. Particularly the authors of
> Christianity not founded on argument; and of The resurrection of Jesus
> considered”. It’s 26k words, I can’t find any transcriptions, and the
> scans <https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-modest-
> address-to-the-_swift-jonathan_1765> are of a poor enough quality to
> preclude OCR.
>
> Do we agree with this as it stands? I’ll get started if so.
>
> -Robin
>
> P. S. I’d love to include the satirical “The Benefit of Farting
> Explained” but the scan <https://www.google.se/books/edition/
> The_Benefit_of_Farting_Explained_c_Or_Th/ZKFhAAAAcAAJ> don’t have a date
> and the notes have it as being of uncertain authorship. Shame.
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 5 Sep 2026, at 13:22, Robin Whittleton <ro...@reala.net> wrote:
>>
>> I volunteered to produce the patron pick this month, and they went for
>> Jonathan Swift’s /Essays/ <https://standardebooks.org/polls/patrons-
>> circle-september-2026-selection/votes>/./ This is going to be a fairly
>> complex production as Swift’s pen ranged across a bunch of subjects,
>> but I’m putting together a spreadsheet. I expect I’ll continue making
>> choices during production as I read through a bunch of his work as to
>> whether to include it or not, but the spreadsheet will document that.
>> There’s a bunch of transcriptions on PG but I expect I’ll be pulling
>> from a load of different places for this.
>>
>> Repo is at https://github.com/robinwhittleton/jonathan-swift_essays
>> <https://github.com/robinwhittleton/jonathan-swift_essays>.
>>
>> For cover art, I found a nice painting of him by Charles Jevens, which
>> I’ve uploaded to the artworks DB at https://standardebooks.org/
>> artworks/charles-jervas/jonathan-swift <https://standardebooks.org/
>> artworks/charles-jervas/jonathan-swift>.
>>
>> -Robin
>>
>> <thumbnail_d151f235b5400219596efaaac1ba7f62d22ffbf3_EBOK_portrait.jpg>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
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>> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
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>> E0F7-4313-9347-F1F356361FDC%40reala.net?
>> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
>
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Alex Cabal

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Sep 6, 2026, 3:04:54 PMSep 6
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Also I've cloned the spreadsheet and made you the editor

Robin Whittleton

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Sep 6, 2026, 3:10:49 PMSep 6
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OK, I’ll try to get everything remaining in then. That’s possibly a case of “I am just going outside and may be some time” ;)

-Robin

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Robin Whittleton

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Sep 20, 2026, 3:17:26 AM (6 days ago) Sep 20
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This production has 4 essays that are in https://standardebooks.org/collections/encyclopaedia-britannicas-gateway-to-the-great-books. Looking at existing metadata for collections with multiple entries I’m a little confused. For example, Tolstoy has 3 entries in the same collection, and this metadata:

<meta id="collection-1" property="belongs-to-collection">Encyclopædia Britannica’s Gateway to the Great Books</meta>
<meta property="collection-type" refines="#collection-1">set</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-1" id="collection-1-entry-1">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type" refines="#collection-1-entry-1">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-1-entry-1">The Death of Ivan Ilyitch</meta>
<meta id="collection-2" property="belongs-to-collection">Encyclopædia Britannica’s Gateway to the Great Books</meta>
<meta property="collection-type" refines="#collection-2">set</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-2" id="collection-2-entry-1">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type" refines="#collection-2-entry-1">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-2-entry-1">The Three Hermits</meta>
<meta id="collection-3" property="belongs-to-collection">Encyclopædia Britannica’s Gateway to the Great Books</meta>
<meta property="collection-type" refines="#collection-3">set</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-3" id="collection-3-entry-1">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type" refines="#collection-3-entry-1">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-3-entry-1">What Men Live By</meta>

What I’m confused about is why we repeat the collection 3 times, and have entry-1 for each. Surely it’d be more concise and correct if we went with something like:

<meta id="collection-1" property="belongs-to-collection">Encyclopædia Britannica’s Gateway to the Great Books</meta>
<meta property="collection-type" refines="#collection-1">set</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-1" id="collection-1-entry-1">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type" refines="#collection-1-entry-1">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-1-entry-1">The Death of Ivan Ilyitch</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-1" id="collection-1-entry-2">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type" refines="#collection-1-entry-2">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-1-entry-2">The Three Hermits</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-1" id="collection-1-entry-3">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type" refines="#collection-1-entry-3">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-1-entry-3">What Men Live By</meta>

-Robin

Alex Cabal

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Sep 21, 2026, 2:01:56 PM (5 days ago) Sep 21
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We duplicate them because you can have the case where the entries are
ordered by group position. (In your example they're not). For example

<meta id="collection-2" property="belongs-to-collection">Harvard
Classics Shelf of Fiction</meta>
<meta property="collection-type" refines="#collection-2">set</meta>
<meta property="group-position" refines="#collection-2">10</meta>
<meta property="schema:hasPart" refines="#collection-2"
id="collection-2-entry-1">schema:hasPart</meta>
<meta property="rdf:type"
refines="#collection-2-entry-1">http://schema.org/CreativeWork</meta>
<meta property="schema:name" refines="#collection-2-entry-1">Two
Friends</meta>

In this case, `group-position` applies to the `collection-N` element,
*not* the `collection-N-entry-X` element. Therefore if two titles would
occur in the same collection, but with a different group positions, then
we'd be forced to duplicate the collection entry.

Because this case exists, we try to be consistent and just always
duplicate them. That way we don't have to remember, "was there a formula
for this case? what is is it again...?" and we have fewer and less
complicated lint checks.

This is an unfortunate side effect of the OPF file format which doesn't
allow nested elements for metadata, and the epub spec which didn't
forsee this particular use case. (The epub working group document that
talks about schema.org vocab in the metadata file also acknowledges
these annoyances.)

On 9/20/26 2:17 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> This production has 4 essays that are in https://standardebooks.org/
> collections/encyclopaedia-britannicas-gateway-to-the-great-books
> <https://standardebooks.org/collections/encyclopaedia-britannicas-
> gateway-to-the-great-books>. Looking at existing metadata for
>>> b885-4a6793ca872c%40standardebooks.org <https://groups.google.com/d/
>>> msgid/standardebooks/0e3a1c22-0ef0-42cb-
>>> b885-4a6793ca872c%40standardebooks.org>.
>>
>
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Robin Whittleton

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Sep 21, 2026, 2:03:28 PM (5 days ago) Sep 21
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