The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter January 14, 2004
eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers For Since 1971
Part 1
In this week's Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter:
1) Editorial
2) News and Comment
3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
4) Mailing list information
Editorial
Hello,
I seem to have spent quite a few of my recent editorials promising
exciting times ahead. Well, I seem to remember from my teaching days
that a string of never ending promises just ends in frustration. So
today we give you the first couple of many. A new website has gone
into testing for PG, see below for details. Even more exciting today
has seen the posting of the 3,000th text from DP, more on this below.
Have a great week.
Happy reading,
Alice
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Wikipedia ebook discussion
This from an idea put forward by one of the volunteers this week.
A wiki or similar forum might be a great way to provide reader support
services to discuss an eBook.
Wikipedias sister project tries to accomplish a similiar job:
http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Annotated_works
So if you would like to discuss a book from PG, this seems to be a
great forum in which to do it. As far as we know there is nothing
particularly specific that relates PG to Wikibooks, so maybe this is
the time to improve this.
With thanks to Karl Eichwalder
To be found in this weeks ebooklistings this week
At Last, by Charles Kingsley 10669
For those wishing to know: this is the last major work Kingsley wrote. His
family had come from the West Indies and it was his life-long ambition to
visit the islands. It's his account of the trip. However, Kingsley was also
very keen on natural history and spends a good deal of the book giving the
Latin names for the plants and animals he comes across.
Game and Playe of the Chesse, by Caxton 10672
Extract from the Introduction of this remarkable book:
"Snuffy Davy bought the 'Game of Chess, 1474,' the first book ever printed
in England, from a stall in Holland for about two groschen, or two-pence of
our money."
Other news this week
We've recently made some signficant changes to the eBook search pages
at http://gutenberg.net/find.shtml. If you haven't tried this out
lately, please do so. It isn't perfect yet, but it's been vastly
improved. For more information about finding eBooks, please see
below.
Help Beta Test A New Website At projectgutenberg.info
This is up and running now, but will change during the month.
Please email hart@pobox.com with your suggestions and comments
Distributed Proofreaders Update
Happy new year!
Yes, I know, you've heard it before. You've heard it so many times in
fact that by now it seems to have little true resonance. Now I don't
write the news here, I just make it up, so far be it for me to play
shepherd of meaning, but I can recognize a New Year when I see
one. Fresh from the gate, 2004 has all the markings a unique life
form. 2003, wonderful as it was for DP, is truly a creature of
history.
Now happiness is a subjective perception, so can a year, in and of
itself, actuallybe happy? For you and me we say "yes." However there
are few readers in the back of the room shaking their heads, so let's
see what can be revealed within these past couple of weeks to dissuade
them out of their disbelief.
Throughout the world, many of our spiritual traditions express the
idea that the surestpath to happiness is found by giving to
others. The unselfish gift so often proves an inspiration for joy. As
anyone who has experienced some will tell you, joy is very
contagious. Spread some of this good stuff around at the beginning of
a year, and sure as the sun warms your skin, joy will flow forward and
illuminate the weeks and months which follow.
Now if you are Distributed Proofreaders how do you start this wheel of
happiness spinning? What do you give, more than what you already do,
and how should you decide who best to give to over another. Ah... both
valid questions, true. But you must know by now that I have thought
about this, thought a great deal in fact. The answer is right at our
feet, the very ground we stand upon shines up at us like the
proverbial "acres of diamonds." That ground is the public domain. "But
we already give to the public domain," I hear from the back of the
room; "In fact, that's all DP lives to do." True indeed ... but the
operative word in my opening wish was "new." This is a new year, and
if we desire it to be different than other years, we must do things in
new ways. This includes giving in new ways as well.
DP lives within the USA, and so we operate under the limits upon the
public domain which presently are imposed upon the USA. It is fair to
say that over the past several years, those of us who live fenced off
from an ever increasing public domain have forgotten the pleasure that
rises when a favorite book is at last released to the public good at
the start of the new year. Yet in countries around the globe, works by
a vast selection of authors were set free this January first. Not
single titles alone, but entire libraries of work have for the first
time become freely available where the laws allow copyright to be
retained for 50-70 years beyond an author's life.
Across the European Union, the works of authors who passed away in
1933 have been free to all for these past two weeks. If you are a fan
of Robert William Chambers, John Galsworthy, Sara Teasdale or George
Augustus Moore and live within a 70+ country, I do envy you the
pleasures that are yours to enjoy this month and beyond. How fine it
must be to at last partake to your heart's content of the thoughts,
feelings and ideas of a favorite author! Well, at least to the extent
of what is available by these authors in Project Gutenberg. Ah!
... and here is true path to happiness for this year. Here is what
Distributed Proofreaders can give in a manner beyond what it already
does and focus that direction upon a specific audience.
With an inspired, dedicated effort, that I will personally champion,
those at DP who desire to, can help expand the existing PG libraries
by authors new to the public domain in the +50-70 countries. This will
of course be limited to those works of a pre-23 vintage, but this
remains to be quite a large number of titles. Watch for details about
this initiative in the forums over the coming days, there is
participation to be enjoyed at every level of research and production,
as well as a promise of happiness that will stay with you long beyond
the borders of this year and on into your life. Even among our own DP
community we have so much to give and in so doing show the gratitude
for all that has been already given by those members from certain
countries where other projects at DP were not open for the PD in their
home country. There is so much to give through this effort and so much
to be received in return. A happy new year it is and a happy new year
it continue to be.
This year sees a vast and wondrously promising expansion of the DP
dream, which will fill the news of the next couple of weeks. This is
one of the original promises of the Internet kept and true, the
collaborative effort of dedicated individuals throughout the world
working for a better and brighter future. Stay tuned!!
What would a new year be without a significant milestone? Today we
celebrate a very big one. Just a couple of hours ago, the 3,000th
completed project at DP was posted to Project Gutenberg. Yes, it was
just in September that we completed the 2,000th project. And yes, that
IS pretty amazing, but hey, we amazin' folks!
Okay, some of us are amazin'! Like Karl Hagen, for instance, who took
on the heroic labor of post processing The Anatomy of Melancholy, by
Democritus Junior. A project which is legendary in the history & lore
of DP. The setting of this project as the commemorative DP3K posting
is a small gesture of appreciation to Karl and all the DP members who
put their efforts into bringing this book to PG.
Following that feat of dedication, there is no more to say.
Until next week...all the best to each and all of you, now and for the
50 weeks ahead!
Thierry Alberto
Radio Gutenberg Update
www.gutenberg.net/audio
channel 1 - Sherlock Holmes "The Sign of Four"
channel 2 - Robert Sheckley's "Bad Medicine"
Both are high quality live readings from the collection.
Testing of Radio Gutenberg audio books on demand is currently taking
place.
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3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
The Anatomy of Melancholy, by Democritus Junior (Robert Burton)
An extract from the introduction:
"ADVERTISEMENT TO THE LAST LONDON EDITION (1652 ?)
The work now restored to public notice has had an extraordinary fate. At
the time of its original publication it obtained a great celebrity, which
continued more than half a century. During that period few books were more
read, or more deservedly applauded. It was the delight of the learned, the
solace of the indolent, and the refuge of the uninformed. It passed through
at least eight editions, by which the bookseller, as WOOD records, got an
estate; and, notwithstanding the objection sometimes opposed against it, of
a quaint style, and too great an accumulation of authorities, the
fascination of its wit, fancy, and sterling sense, have borne down all
censures, and extorted praise from the first Writers in the English
language. The grave JOHNSON has praised it in the warmest terms, and the
ludicrous STERNE has interwoven many parts of it into his own popular
performance. MILTON did not disdain to build two of his finest poems on it;
and a host of inferior writers have embellished their works with beauties
not their own, culled from a performance which they had not the justice
even to mention. Change of times, and the frivolity of fashion, suspended,
in some degree, that fame which had lasted near a century; and the
succeeding generation affected indifference towards an author, who at
length was only looked into by the plunderers of literature, the poachers
in obscure volumes. The plagiarisms of _Tristram Shandy_, so successfully
brought to light by DR. FERRIAR, at length drew the attention of the public
towards a writer, who, though then little known, might, without impeachment
of modesty, lay claim to every mark of respect; and inquiry proved, beyond
a doubt, that the calls of justice had been little attended to by others,
as well as the facetious YORICK. WOOD observed, more than a century ago,
that several authors had unmercifully stolen matter from BURTON without any
acknowledgment. The time, however, at length arrived, when the merits of
the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ were to receive their due praise. The book was
again sought for and read, and again it became an applauded performance."
The Anatomy of Melancholy - it stil sends shivers down my spine and I
only proofed one page. This has to be one of the most scary books I
have ever laid eyes on, but that must not diminish it's
importance. The Anatomy of Melancholy was published eight times during
the authors lifetime, a rare enough event these days, never mind 400
years ago. The books' subject matter is depression, "Burton believed
depression to be both a physical and spiritual ailment. Prompted by
his own bouts with the affliction, he employed his considerable
erudition and wit to write what amounts to the first psychiatric
encyclopedia, citing early 500 medical authors in the course of
classifying the myriad causes, forms and symptoms of depression, and
describing its various cures (Norman)"
The work reveals Burton's delight in English literature and his
'roving humour'. He quotes from Shakespeare, Jonson, Daniel, Drayton,
and Florio's Montaigne. His own library at Christ Church was filled
with such works, and his bequest of more than 800 volumes to the
Bodleian Library laid the foundations for Bodley's collection of
English literature.
The first edition is the only one of the eight life-time editions in
which the 'Conclusion' is included, at the end of which Burton's name
appears - not that his authorship was any secret.
A search on the internet turned up an antiquarian bookseller asking an
amazing 32000 GB pounds for a copy.
Alice
Hilaire Belloc
This was brought to our attention a while ago. There appear to be many
and various works of Belloc available for use in PG. These include
Cautionary Tales for Children
Avril, Being Essays on Poetry of the French Renaissance
The Four Men: A Farrago
The French Revolution
Servile State
Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953), was born close to Paris, but due to the
Franco-Prussian war was educated in England. He attended Oxford
University and served as a member of Parliament for Salford South. His
first work was published in 1896, and over 150 volumes were eventually
published.
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Current Subscription Numbers as at end December 2003
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Credits
Thanks this week to Brett and George for the numbers and the
booklists. Thierry, Greg, Michael and Larry Wall. Entertainment for
the workers provided as usual by Andrew Collins and BBC 6Music. A
special well-done to DP for the 3,000 ebooks. I going for a lie-down
now, I have a cold.
pgweekly_2004_01_14_part_1.txt
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