Lots of new SCA-period relevant eBooks
Jan. 5th, 2005 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurBeen a while since I've done one of these. Close to 700 new books out from PGDP, so just the highlights:
Bacon, by R.W. Church. A fairly substantial biography of one of the more important characters at the end of period. Seems to focus heavily on his relationships with the Crown.
DICOURS PRODIGIEUX ET espouventable, de trois Espaignols & une
Espagnolle, Magiciens & Sorciers -- honestly, I'm not entirely certain *what* this is, but it appears to be some sort of record of a court case from 1610, and I'm intrigued. Quite brief: the text is actually shorter than the license. In French, obviously, which is why I'm not certain of the details offhand.
The Argonautica, by Apollonius Rhodius. Modern translation of a 3rd century BC account of the story of Jason and the Argonauts.
The Book of the Epic. Essentially an early version of Cliff's Notes: summaries of scads of epic tales, from the Iliad through the Inferno to the Ramayana. Preposterously compressed, but kinda useful.
The Discovery of Witches, by Matthew Hopkins. A fine mid-17th century manual of paranoia, done in a curious question-and-answer format.
The Harvard Classics: Epic and Saga. This volume contains two long period pieces: a translation of The Song of Roland and one of the less-known (to me, anyway) medieval Irish tale The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel.
The Colloquies of Erasmus, vol. 1: N. Bailey's 18th century translation of 16th century instructional conversations written by Erasmus Roterodamus. The topics range a fair ways, but there is a lot of downright practical stuff in here. Most relevant to me personally is the chapter "Of Various Plays", a collection of conversations about sports and dancing and such. (Specific note offhand: this says clearly that Bocce can be played singly or in teams, which I've assumed but hadn't had good proof.) There is also a long section set at feast, with some interesting tidbits implicit in that about feast protocol.
Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 1. A late 19th century translation. Also Vol. 2, Vol. 3
The Story of Alchemy, and the Beginnings of Chemistry.
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. Hey, I'm sure someone on my friends list is a Beatrix Potter fan. And while we're at it, The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny.
A Celtic Psaltery. English translations of a large number of Irish and Welsh poems. Unfortunately lacks detailed attributions of most of the poems, save for notes like "From the Old Irish".
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol VI. A curiously broad collection of essays about various subjects. Each essay is highly focused on a particular event or topic, and all (in this volume, anyway) are medieval, ranging from around 1100 to 1300. Neat stuff.
A mery Dialogue, declaringe the propertyes of shrowde shrewes, and honest wyues (1557). More Erasmus. 16th century English translation, and with an alternate (large) page that shows all the original page images -- yummy. Also Two Dialogues, another period English translation of Erasmus' works.
Etiquette in Society, by Emily Post. For the etiquette mavens.
Old English Sports (1891). Victorian scholarship, with all the problems that implies, but still a relevant book for me.
Elektra, by Euripides. Translated into agonizingly sing-song rhymed English couplets. Also Agamemnon by Aeschylus, which is at least in a more interesting rhyme scheme. And Seven Plays by Sophocles, versified but mercifully not rhymed.
The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. Rather nice English translation, although I can't speak to its accuracy.
AN Historical Relation Of the Island CEYLON, IN THE EAST-INDIES (1681). Rather entertaining -- a nice little field guide to near-period Ceylon, and an account of how the author's ship managed to get seized and bound, forcing them to escape the island.
The Queen-like Closet (1672). A substantial cookbook (ballpark of 500 recipes in two volumes) -- post-period, but not much later than some we use frequently. Has lots of drink recipes; no idea whether it plagiarizes from Digby or not. Also a large number of preserve and candy recipes.
The Exemplary Novels by Cervantes. Modern translation of the early 17th century original.
Goethe's Faust, in an 1858 translation. Also a slightly later translation written in reaction to the first.
Greene's Third and Last Part of Cony-Catching, one of the more legendary books on period cheating.
The Old English Physiologus. This is actually a facing-page translation -- the HTML is done in two columns, so you can see the old and modern English side by side. Worth it just for that, IMO.
More Beaumont and Fletcher: The Laws of Candy and Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife.
Whew! Okay, a lot of books. Still, a lot of really neat stuff in there. Hopefully folks are at least occasionally finding these indexes useful...
Bacon, by R.W. Church. A fairly substantial biography of one of the more important characters at the end of period. Seems to focus heavily on his relationships with the Crown.
DICOURS PRODIGIEUX ET espouventable, de trois Espaignols & une
Espagnolle, Magiciens & Sorciers -- honestly, I'm not entirely certain *what* this is, but it appears to be some sort of record of a court case from 1610, and I'm intrigued. Quite brief: the text is actually shorter than the license. In French, obviously, which is why I'm not certain of the details offhand.
The Argonautica, by Apollonius Rhodius. Modern translation of a 3rd century BC account of the story of Jason and the Argonauts.
The Book of the Epic. Essentially an early version of Cliff's Notes: summaries of scads of epic tales, from the Iliad through the Inferno to the Ramayana. Preposterously compressed, but kinda useful.
The Discovery of Witches, by Matthew Hopkins. A fine mid-17th century manual of paranoia, done in a curious question-and-answer format.
The Harvard Classics: Epic and Saga. This volume contains two long period pieces: a translation of The Song of Roland and one of the less-known (to me, anyway) medieval Irish tale The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel.
The Colloquies of Erasmus, vol. 1: N. Bailey's 18th century translation of 16th century instructional conversations written by Erasmus Roterodamus. The topics range a fair ways, but there is a lot of downright practical stuff in here. Most relevant to me personally is the chapter "Of Various Plays", a collection of conversations about sports and dancing and such. (Specific note offhand: this says clearly that Bocce can be played singly or in teams, which I've assumed but hadn't had good proof.) There is also a long section set at feast, with some interesting tidbits implicit in that about feast protocol.
Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 1. A late 19th century translation. Also Vol. 2, Vol. 3
The Story of Alchemy, and the Beginnings of Chemistry.
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. Hey, I'm sure someone on my friends list is a Beatrix Potter fan. And while we're at it, The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny.
A Celtic Psaltery. English translations of a large number of Irish and Welsh poems. Unfortunately lacks detailed attributions of most of the poems, save for notes like "From the Old Irish".
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol VI. A curiously broad collection of essays about various subjects. Each essay is highly focused on a particular event or topic, and all (in this volume, anyway) are medieval, ranging from around 1100 to 1300. Neat stuff.
A mery Dialogue, declaringe the propertyes of shrowde shrewes, and honest wyues (1557). More Erasmus. 16th century English translation, and with an alternate (large) page that shows all the original page images -- yummy. Also Two Dialogues, another period English translation of Erasmus' works.
Etiquette in Society, by Emily Post. For the etiquette mavens.
Old English Sports (1891). Victorian scholarship, with all the problems that implies, but still a relevant book for me.
Elektra, by Euripides. Translated into agonizingly sing-song rhymed English couplets. Also Agamemnon by Aeschylus, which is at least in a more interesting rhyme scheme. And Seven Plays by Sophocles, versified but mercifully not rhymed.
The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. Rather nice English translation, although I can't speak to its accuracy.
AN Historical Relation Of the Island CEYLON, IN THE EAST-INDIES (1681). Rather entertaining -- a nice little field guide to near-period Ceylon, and an account of how the author's ship managed to get seized and bound, forcing them to escape the island.
The Queen-like Closet (1672). A substantial cookbook (ballpark of 500 recipes in two volumes) -- post-period, but not much later than some we use frequently. Has lots of drink recipes; no idea whether it plagiarizes from Digby or not. Also a large number of preserve and candy recipes.
The Exemplary Novels by Cervantes. Modern translation of the early 17th century original.
Goethe's Faust, in an 1858 translation. Also a slightly later translation written in reaction to the first.
Greene's Third and Last Part of Cony-Catching, one of the more legendary books on period cheating.
The Old English Physiologus. This is actually a facing-page translation -- the HTML is done in two columns, so you can see the old and modern English side by side. Worth it just for that, IMO.
More Beaumont and Fletcher: The Laws of Candy and Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife.
Whew! Okay, a lot of books. Still, a lot of really neat stuff in there. Hopefully folks are at least occasionally finding these indexes useful...
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 02:41 am (UTC)Espagnolle, Magiciens & Sorciers -- honestly, I'm not entirely certain *what* this is, but it appears to be some sort of record of a court case from 1610, and I'm intrigued. Quite brief: the text is actually shorter than the license. In French, obviously, which is why I'm not certain of the details offhand.
yeah, it's a court case. Briefly: There's a prelude about how God hates sorcery and then the story... A priest from Bordeaux went to Dole on business, and on the way back fell in with 3 Spaniards and a Spanish woman, also traveling on the road. They claimed they would be in Bordeaux by nightfall, which he scoffed at, it being 100 ligues away. So somehow they put him to sleep, and when he awoke he was at the gates of Bordeaux, where people would not believe he had been at Dole that very day. But he apparently had the paperwork to prove it, and he suspected his traveling companions -- their baggage was searched and found to have books, images, wax tablets, knives, parchment and other stuff for performing magic, whereupon they were arrested for sorcerers and magicians and examined, and confessed that they had traveled all over Italy and France, carried by devils in the clouds from town to town, making 100 to 120 ligues in a day, and that they performed all sorts of curses, charms, and sorceries against anyone who displeased them, bringing down hail and stones on crops, drying up crops and vines, causing beasts to languish to death, causing pregnant women to miscarry and various deaths, etc. The court pronounced the sentence that they were to be burned alive with their books and paraphernalia, and when led to the stake and exhorted to ask for God's mercy they could not, and died without repenting of their wickedness and sins.
It does make one wonder what really happened.
Detailed translation available if you want it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 04:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 01:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 02:58 pm (UTC)Odds are pretty good that the errors are in the original: after the original OCR pass, each book goes through a double proofreading. So while errors aren't unheard-of, they're fairly unusual. But I honestly don't know how to check it, offhand. I'll have to see if I can figure it out...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 06:26 pm (UTC)It's not a giant deal. Anyone familiar with French of the period would find them minor and gloss over them.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 05:31 pm (UTC)Cool! This one is partially due to my efforts. I loaned a bunch of microfilmed xeroxes to