Talk:The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)

Regarding the Request for Cleanup

 * The ASCII source indicated italic text by preceding and appending all such text with underscores "_". Such words should be tagged so as to be rendered in italics and the underscores removed.


 * From time-to-time the author inserts footnotes, these are indicated in curly braced numbers, such as {1} etc. These should be tagged as superscript. The corresponding note should probably be made end-notes to the chapter, perhaps beneath a horizontal bar.


 * Though not strictly necessary, it might be nice to convert all quotations (single and double) to right, and left quotation marks using unicode.

That's probably the bulk of the cleanup that this text needs to see, though suggestions as for how to improve formatting are welcome.

—Wikijeff

I cleaned this text up a lot, look at the revision history. I'm not going to bother with a ASCII to Unicode conversion just for the benefit of punctuation. It seems the “Ariel” font which is the default on wikisource dose not curl it's quotes even if I do. So, until the default font for wikisource changes, that would be a waste of time.

—Wikijeff

Clean-Up Complete

 * Wikified the entire text
 * Most (if not all instances of ALL CAPS words have been bolded).
 * Things that proper style requres be italicised have been, such as the names of publications (real or ficticious) that the author mentions.
 * If the PG source indented somthing, it was indented using wiki code.
 * Footnotes have become chapter linked endnotes with properly superscripted letters.
 * End notes, when they occur, are placed under a horizontal line at the chapter's end.
 * All chapter titles have been centered and bolded.
 * An Inter-Chapter navigator has been created.
 * A proper table of contents, and a text info box have both been created.


 * Selected use of Unicode
 * All instances of double dash, "--" have been replaced with Unicode Em-Dash U+2014.
 * I found nothing else that compelled the use of Unicode in the body of the text.
 * Quotes (singe and double) have not been converted to Unicode.

&mdash;Wikijeff

The Island of Doctor Moreau?
Should we move this to The Island of Doctor Moreau? Yann 23:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Dr. -> Doctor : Broken links
When moving the title page, perhaps it would be wise to also move each of the sub-pages, as in the chapters. Currently all the links are broken, despite the full text being available at The_Island_of_Dr._Moreau/Chapter_XX, which were added by Wikijeff.

Currently the best version is this: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau&oldid=195921

... Ok, I've moved the pages from Dr. Moreau to Doctor Moreau, except for chapters 2 and 10, as they already existed. Unable to delete those pages, I copied the content from the Dr. Moreau versions. However, the history is unfortunately not included.

... I just noticed that some of the "next chapter" links go directly to the edit page for that chapter. I have no idea why. The chapters are:

Introduction -> Chapter 1

Chapter 6 -> Chapter 7

Chapter 11 -> Chapter 12

Chapter 17 -> Chapter 18

Source, Mistakes, Links
The source of this Wikisource rendering is obviously the first American edition (Stone & Kimball, 1896). The first English edition is different in a number of minor issues, i.e. punctuation, paragraph setting, but also six added sentences (whereas two sentences from the American edition do not appear in the English one), also a number of words. How could one mention this?

The American edition has some obvious mistakes (printing errors and the like, e.g. "Africa" in the introduction, which has to be read "Arica"). Should such errors be marked in the text?

Some unusual notions could be explained by a Wikilink, as "Comus rout" (from Comus), "Ollendorffian" (from Ollendorff), and the like. May I do this or is this unusual in English Wikisource?--Mautpreller (talk) 09:41, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Ideally this unsourced text would be replaced by a sourced text (i.e. a DjVu file uploaded to Commons and the text proofread). We would be happy to host both the English and American language editions when the differences are of the significance you indicate. If there are printing errors then they should be marked with the SIC template. We're in the midst of finalising our policy on annotations, but links to Wiktionary for definitions of unusual words are acceptable. Otherwise, links to the reference works we hold such as Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), &c. are preferred as they keep readers on-site. Those articles often have links to Wikipedia in the header. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay. A facsimile of the first American edition is to be found here: http://www.s4ulanguages.com/wells1.html . I am not acquainted with the upload terms of Wikisource resp. this site; is it possible to upload this for proofreading? I haven't got a copy of the first English edition (only a "variorum edition" which lists all variations). There is definitely a number of variations that might make it worth hosting both editions, e.g. in the Introduction the English edition inserts a whole new sentence. But I'm not quite sure about author's rights since Wells didn't die before 1946. This would mean that in Germany the text is not in PD since 70 years post mortem auctoris have not yet passed. (I'm a German wikipedian.)--Mautpreller (talk) 10:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * P.S. There is scientific debate about the priority of the two first editions as Robert Philmus writes in his "Variorum Edition" of the text. The temporal sequence is not clear, but according to Philmus it is safe to assume that both editions have been acknowledged by Wells. There is even a third version ("Atlantic edition") some twenty years later which has also been proofread by Wells himself, so the edition history is quite tricky; but there seems to be scientific consensus that the two "First editions" from 1896 should be used (but not the same consensus about which one of both is to be preferred).--Mautpreller (talk) 10:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I found a copy on Internet Archive and it's now uploaded on at Commons:File:The Island of Doctor Moreau.djvu. Can I leave it to you to change to the Book template over there and create the Index? With respect to the copyright issue, this is the American edition and published before 1923, so can be worked on by anyone. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)