David has invited me to highlight some of the freely available files at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere. May I kick off with a work I have contributed myself, under my given rather than my fiction-writing name?
It is an electronic edition of the first three books of Edmund Spenser‘s Faerie Queene, an epic poem first published in 1590-6 and one of the chief glories of the English language. The painting shown here is “Una and the Lion” by Briton Rivière; Lady Una, representing Truth, is among Spenser’s main characters in this allegory, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth 1. You can download the Faerie Queen text itself from Project Gutenberg (here) or Manybooks.net (here), or read Mary Macleod’s 1916 prose version.
Origin of the edition
In 1989, together with an ex-university friend, I formed a company to prepare CD-ROMs for tertiary teaching of English. Using hypertext and similar newfangled gizmos, these were to make studying English literature a breeze. But the price of CD-ROMs collapsed and so did our business.
Our first venture was The Faerie Queene. This was in the age before reliable OCR, so I typed out the text, proofing it against a facsimile edition. Then I “translated” Edmund Spenser’s original into a modern English parallel or “shadow text,” supplying context-sensitive notes and definitions of difficult words. EMACS automated much of this work.
Electronic publication permits the sprawling size of a text like this: it is too big to be printed.
User interface
As programmed in 1990 by my colleague, the beta was a delight. The reader could adopt the font used in the 1596 quarto edition, even switching on or off the old-style “long s.”
Underlining or mouse-over, as preferred, displayed or alerted the reader to hypertext links, showing the textual appendix in the case of the original text, and notes and definitions in the case of the shadow. A single click or keystroke flipped between the shadow and original texts.
Thus an experienced Spenserian could browse an original which resembled the 16th-century books I had examined in the British Library, while a beginning student could read a stanza first in modern English and then superimpose the original. This allowed rapid progress in familiarity with Elizabethan verse.
Not wasted effort
I didn’t get round to Books IV-VI or the Mutability Cantos. By the time I reached the end of Book III the market had changed and our business model no longer made sense.
Even though we lost time and money, I don’t regret the years I spent on this project. My knowledge of the language deepened and so did my appreciation of Spenser. In 2003 I reformatted the text and sent it to Project Gutenberg, where I hope some readers have found it valuable.
Formatting
The Gutenberg edition is best viewed in a monospaced font, on a screen 80 characters wide. Using a macro or a programming language, it would be easy to reformat the definitions into flowable form, in which case the work could be read on a smaller screen.
If you have never read any Spenser, why not check him out? After all, the edition is free!
Moderator’s note: Notice? Richard tells of letting the reader choose between the usual underlined links or displays triggered by mouseovers. Time for .epub to allow for this if it isn’t in the standard already? Meanwhile, given the year of the project, I don’t think he and colleagues did too badly. Would that more money had been available to them—and to public domain collections. Imagine if Project Gutenberg had happened with elaborate hyperlinking and annotations from the start. It isn’t too late. We need good standards and the right funding mechanisms—TeleRead-style approaches?—to make this happen. – David
“Imagine if Project Gutenberg had happened with elaborate hyperlinking and annotations from the start.”
Nothing stops any Project Gutenberg contributor from posting hyperlinked versions of their books in any format they desire together with the plain vanilla ASCII version, though the White Washers—the caretakers of PG—prefer formats they can edit in case errata are sent in. PG has additional rules for HTML, mainly to make sure that even the HTML versions are as accessible as possible.
Excellent points, Branko, but I’m talking about fancy links and annotations everywhere—not just in works where the volunteers had an interest in doing this. Thanks. David
Hm, you want an all-volunteer organization to do things that its volunteers have no interest in doing? How would that work?
It wouldn’t, Branko. We need both Project Gutenberg (offering a valuable alternative to institutionally chosen works!)and a library model (offering stable hyperlinks, annoations, etc.). Thanks. David
Aaaaah! 🙂
I have been looking for a modern language version of The Faerie Queene. Your work is wonderful, thankyou. Middle english and “modern” english editions abound. I’d love to have just your modern language version on its own, and sit down with 2 versions in separate books. Have you that available anywhere?
I think a version like yours could make Spenser approachable by people who normally wouldn’t go near him. As an illustrator, I’d love one day to have a bash at an illustrated modern language version. If you have continued this work, or know of anyone who has (I though Oxford was doing something, but I can’t find it on the web), I’d appreciate hearing about it. And if you find the idea of an illustrated modern language version interesting, I’d love to speak with you about it further. Thanks again for your work.