5 ms·

Did you produce the Edgar Allan Poe Short Fiction collection? I'm reading it right now, it's great! And huge! https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe

by 0-_-0 6y ago

Did you produce the Edgar Allan Poe Short Fiction collection? I'm reading it right now, it's great! And huge! https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fict...

robin_reala 6y ago
Yep! Glad you’re enjoying it. Here are my share of the SE productions: https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ Biggest so far (and biggest on SE at 1.2m words) has been Samuel Pepys’ Diary: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary
- 0-_-0 6y ago
  Thank you for your efforts! That book is more than 2600 pages! How long did that take?
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    Nearly two years, but I took a bunch of time out to work on smaller pieces. The biggest problem was that Gutenberg had only transcribed about a third of the footnotes, so I spent a long time adding the remaining ones back in.
    - 0-_-0 6y ago
      So you were transcribing a diary written in a shorthand? Or from a print version?
      - robin_reala 6y ago
        From scanned original sources. I just opened a random page at archive.org to give you an example: https://archive.org/details/diaryofsamuelpep01pepy/page/228/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/diaryofsamuelpep01pepy/page/228/...
        0-_-0 6y ago
        Do you use OCR? Sorry for the million questions.
        robin_reala 6y ago
        No problem! Yes, archive.org has OCRed all the text, but it needs a lot of finessing to bring up the quality to an acceptable standard. Typically, Standard Ebooks will try to avoid OCR unless it’s something that’s missing from Gutenberg.
        0-_-0 6y ago
        Thank you for your time! (If you started some sort of AMA here I'm sure it would be successful.)
    - jfk13 6y ago
      Great work! Is there any link between this and the Pepys Diary site at https://www.pepysdiary.com https://www.pepysdiary.com (also an awesome resource)?
      - robin_reala 6y ago
        I had a chat with Phil after I finished, and he sent over a list of transcription problems with Gutenberg that I’d missed which was very kind. But apart from that, no direct collaboration.
- dbrgn 6y ago
  Whoa, SE looks incredible. Thanks for your work on that! Are there any plans to support non-English ebooks as well? Edit: Regarding non-English ebooks, I was thinking about books like "Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst" (Birdflight As The Basis Of Aviation) by Otto Lilienthal (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54565 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54565). It's a fantastic book with nice hand-drawn illustrations, and it would deserve being presented/typeset in a beautiful way. Currently available ebooks are mostly bad.
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    Sorry, no. Like I said in another comment, a large part of what makes SE good is our manual of style, which is really just applicable to English works. If you want to use the toolchain to produce a novel in another language feel free (removing our logo and name, of course).

by 0-_-0 6y ago

robin_reala 6y ago

Yep! Glad you’re enjoying it. Here are my share of the SE productions: https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ Biggest so far (and biggest on SE at 1.2m words) has been Samuel Pepys’ Diary: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary

0-_-0 6y ago
Thank you for your efforts! That book is more than 2600 pages! How long did that take?
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Nearly two years, but I took a bunch of time out to work on smaller pieces. The biggest problem was that Gutenberg had only transcribed about a third of the footnotes, so I spent a long time adding the remaining ones back in.
  - 0-_-0 6y ago
    So you were transcribing a diary written in a shorthand? Or from a print version?
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      From scanned original sources. I just opened a random page at archive.org to give you an example: https://archive.org/details/diaryofsamuelpep01pepy/page/228/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/diaryofsamuelpep01pepy/page/228/...
      - 0-_-0 6y ago
        Do you use OCR? Sorry for the million questions.
        robin_reala 6y ago
        No problem! Yes, archive.org has OCRed all the text, but it needs a lot of finessing to bring up the quality to an acceptable standard. Typically, Standard Ebooks will try to avoid OCR unless it’s something that’s missing from Gutenberg.
        0-_-0 6y ago
        Thank you for your time! (If you started some sort of AMA here I'm sure it would be successful.)
  - jfk13 6y ago
    Great work! Is there any link between this and the Pepys Diary site at https://www.pepysdiary.com https://www.pepysdiary.com (also an awesome resource)?
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      I had a chat with Phil after I finished, and he sent over a list of transcription problems with Gutenberg that I’d missed which was very kind. But apart from that, no direct collaboration.
dbrgn 6y ago
Whoa, SE looks incredible. Thanks for your work on that! Are there any plans to support non-English ebooks as well? Edit: Regarding non-English ebooks, I was thinking about books like "Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst" (Birdflight As The Basis Of Aviation) by Otto Lilienthal (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54565 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54565). It's a fantastic book with nice hand-drawn illustrations, and it would deserve being presented/typeset in a beautiful way. Currently available ebooks are mostly bad.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Sorry, no. Like I said in another comment, a large part of what makes SE good is our manual of style, which is really just applicable to English works. If you want to use the toolchain to produce a novel in another language feel free (removing our logo and name, of course).