Wow, what a lot of work you've done! I'm very impressed.
"On my part, sorry for my rather slow replies!"
On the contrary, I've thought you've been amazingly quick, given the dense information I've been posting.
"how does one become a bibliographer and print historian, anyway?"
You know, I really don't know? My father started off as a literary historian, so I assume that the bibliography interest grew out of that. But I'm not sure where the printing interest came from. I was in my pre-teens when he first started talking about it with me. He did edit a newspaper in college, and he owned a little printer's set for kids when he was a boy. So I'm guessing that interest developed slowly.
[Edited to add: I asked my father, and he says he thinks his interest in printing grew out of his research on William Morris's Kelmscott Press. That matches my memory.]
At any rate, it permeated my childhood. He introduced me to the Library of Congress card catalogue when I was about ten. By the time I was a teen, he was taking me around to see books being printed. When I was an adult, he created the design for my first magazine (he's a book designer too), and then, when I took the magazine onto the web, he designed my first website. Which is a large part of the reason I'm an indie author today. :)
"I'd bet that the extra material was added for the US Crowell edition."
Ooo! It would be really interesting if that was the case. Darn it, I should have been picking up used editions of Sutcliff's novels, back in the eighties.
By the way, I assume you've seen this helpful list of recent editions?
Yes, and that could be very helpful for doing spot checks, since one can do searches on them.
"I don't know anything about text comparison software"
All you need is Word or a similar word processing program; I use LibreOffice. Comparing files is really easy: you just open one file, then run the comparison program with the second file. It works a bit like Track Changes, if you've ever used that.
"but the archive allows controlled downloads, so it might be possible to use their files?"
Only if one broke the DRM, alas; with the DRM intact, you can only open the files in Adobe-DRM-linked software, and I don't know of any Adobe-DRM-linked software that would compare files or allow a full copy-and-paste (for obvious reasons).
I'm only able to make the comparisons with the Bookshare files because they use social DRM; this is a much more flexible form of DRM that bypasses the Adobe system. Conveniently, Bookshare also provides the option of downloading in Word format. So all I have to do is open the Word files in LibreOffice and run the comparison.
There are definite advantages to being visually impaired!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-10-01 12:54 am (UTC)Wow, what a lot of work you've done! I'm very impressed.
"On my part, sorry for my rather slow replies!"
On the contrary, I've thought you've been amazingly quick, given the dense information I've been posting.
"how does one become a bibliographer and print historian, anyway?"
You know, I really don't know? My father started off as a literary historian, so I assume that the bibliography interest grew out of that. But I'm not sure where the printing interest came from. I was in my pre-teens when he first started talking about it with me. He did edit a newspaper in college, and he owned a little printer's set for kids when he was a boy. So I'm guessing that interest developed slowly.
[Edited to add: I asked my father, and he says he thinks his interest in printing grew out of his research on William Morris's Kelmscott Press. That matches my memory.]
At any rate, it permeated my childhood. He introduced me to the Library of Congress card catalogue when I was about ten. By the time I was a teen, he was taking me around to see books being printed. When I was an adult, he created the design for my first magazine (he's a book designer too), and then, when I took the magazine onto the web, he designed my first website. Which is a large part of the reason I'm an indie author today. :)
"I'd bet that the extra material was added for the US Crowell edition."
Ooo! It would be really interesting if that was the case. Darn it, I should have been picking up used editions of Sutcliff's novels, back in the eighties.
By the way, I assume you've seen this helpful list of recent editions?
https://rosemarysutcliff.com/latest-summary-bibliography-list-of-books-by-rosemary-sutcliff/
Here's a letter from Sutcliff saying she prefers the American edition of The Shining Company - but she doesn't say why, alas.
https://rosemarysutcliff.com/the-shining-company-rosemary-sutcliff/
"archive.org has most of Sutcliff's novels"
Yes, and that could be very helpful for doing spot checks, since one can do searches on them.
"I don't know anything about text comparison software"
All you need is Word or a similar word processing program; I use LibreOffice. Comparing files is really easy: you just open one file, then run the comparison program with the second file. It works a bit like Track Changes, if you've ever used that.
"but the archive allows controlled downloads, so it might be possible to use their files?"
Only if one broke the DRM, alas; with the DRM intact, you can only open the files in Adobe-DRM-linked software, and I don't know of any Adobe-DRM-linked software that would compare files or allow a full copy-and-paste (for obvious reasons).
I'm only able to make the comparisons with the Bookshare files because they use social DRM; this is a much more flexible form of DRM that bypasses the Adobe system. Conveniently, Bookshare also provides the option of downloading in Word format. So all I have to do is open the Word files in LibreOffice and run the comparison.
There are definite advantages to being visually impaired!