The steady growth went on, with an average of 8 books per month in
1994, 16 books per month in 1995, and 32 books per month in 1996.
In June 1997, Project Gutenberg released "The Merry Adventures of Robin
Hood" (1883), by Howard Pyle.
Project Gutenberg had 1,000 ebooks in August 1997. eBook #1000 was "La
Divina Commedia" de Dante Alighieri (1321), in Italian, its original
language.
As there were more and more ebooks, they got classified in three main
sections: (a) "Light Literature", such as "Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland", "Through the Looking-Glass", "Peter Pan" and "Aesop's
Fables"; (b) "Heavy Literature", such as the Bible, Shakespeare's
works, "Moby Dick" and "Paradise Lost"; (c) "Reference Literature",
such as "Roget's Thesaurus", almanacs, and a set of encyclopedias and
dictionaries. (This classification in three sections was replaced later
with a more detailed one.)
"Light Literature" was the main section in number of ebooks. As
explained on the website in 1998, "The Light Literature Collection is
designed to get persons to the computer in the first place, whether the
person may be a pre-schooler or a great-grandparent. We love it when we
hear about kids or grandparents taking each other to an etext of 'Peter
Pan' when they come back from watching Hook at the movies, or when they
read 'Alice in Wonderland' after seeing it on TV. We have also been
told that nearly every Star Trek movie has quoted current Project
Gutenberg etext releases (from 'Moby Dick' in 'The Wrath of Khan'; a
Peter Pan quote finishing up the most recent, etc.) not to mention a
reference to 'Through the Looking-Glass' in JFK. This was a primary
concern when we chose the books for our libraries. We want people to be
able to look up quotations they heard in conversation, movies, music,
other books, easily with a library containing all these quotations in
an easy-to-find etext format."
Project Gutenberg has selected books intended for the general public.
It has not focused on providing authoritative editions. "We do not
write for the reader who cares whether a certain phrase in Shakespeare
has a ':' or a ';' between its clauses. We put our sights on a goal to
release etexts that are 99.9% accurate in the eyes of the general
reader. Given the preferences our proofreaders have, and the general
lack of reading ability the public is currently reported to have, we
probably exceed those requirements by a significant amount. However,
for the person who wants an 'authoritative edition' we will have to
wait some time until this becomes more feasible. We do, however, intend
to release many editions of Shakespeare and the other classics for
comparative study on a scholarly level."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account