for 32 days, i am showing samples of the problems
with the text in e-books from the internet archive...
***
today's example is again from our friend from baltimore,
edgar allen poe, this time volume 4 of his collected works.
here's the scan for page 22:
> http://www.archive.org/stream/worksofedgaralle04poee#page/22
here's the o.c.r. for the whole book:
> http://ia341320.us.archive.org/2/items/worksofedgaralle04poee/worksofedgaralle04poee_djvu.txt
and here's the o.c.r. for page 22:
>
> 22 WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
>
> ''IJcnri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a
> silvej -imith, deposes that he was one of the
> party v\ iio first entered the house. Corroborates
> the testimony of Muset in general. As soon as
> they forced an entrance, they re-closed the door,
> to keep out the crowd, which collected very fast,
> notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. The
> shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an
> Italian. Was certain it was not French.
> Could not be sure that it was a man's voice. It
> might have been a woman's. Was not ac-
> quainted with the Italian language. Could not
> distinguish the words, but was convinced by the
> intonation that the speaker was an Italian.
> Knew Madame L. and her daugh4;er. Had con-
> versed with both frequently. Was sure that the
> shrill voice was not that of either of the
> deceased. f
>
> " Odenheimer, restaurateur. — This wit-
> ness volunteered his testimony. Not speaking
> French, was examined through an interpreter.
> Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the
> house at the time of the shrieks. They lasted
> for several minutes — probably ten. They were
> long and loud — very awful and distressing.
> Was one of those who entered the building.
> Corroborated the previous evidence in every re-
> spect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice
> was that of a man — of a Frenchman. Could
> not distinguish the words uttered. They were
> loud and quick — unequal— spoken apparently in
> fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh
> — not so much shrill as harsh. Could not call it
errors in the upper-left corner, including "henri" and
"silversmith" and "who". with "daughter" further down,
a stray "f", and some missing em-dashes too. plus the
missing italics, of course, at the start of each paragraph.
this is pretty representative of many pages, in that it is
_very_ good in the sense that it's almost all correct, but
the half-dozen problems which do manifest will still take
a bit of time to fix, and that accumulates over a full book.
-bowerbird