Well...
It seems in all the "fun" of the festive season I missed not one but TWO book Tuesdays!
I suppose it is a bit late for a New Years resolution to do better but I'll give it a shot 😀
This month I have a link to a source of fantastic historical books online and an example of one such as an example.
Looking for old books is easier now than it was because many used book sellers are online so a Google search for a title usually leads to someone with one to sell.
Private collections, Google, and others like Project Gutenberg have been madly scanning old books for years now and these are available in many different formats, OCR'd text, PDF, and Ebooks. One of the best places to go hunting is the INTERNET ARCHIVE a non-profit organization that collects information in many forms including electronic copies of books.
Internet Archive
From the About page:
The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a
digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form.
Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians,
scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All
Knowledge.
We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just
beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was
ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 26+ years
of web history accessible through the Wayback
Machine and we work with 1,000+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify
important web pages.
As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions
of other published works. Today our archive contains:
Anyone with a free account can
upload media to the Internet Archive.
We work with thousands of partners globally to save copies of their work into
special collections.
Note that "41 million books and texts", that is where most of the Google scanned, Project Gutenberg, and other privately scanned books are collected.
Just enter a search term, author, title, date, or sometimes even a quote and you will have a world of possible texts available to you!
Definitely worth bookmarking.
So to "whet yer whistle" check this gem out!
The PDF is available directly from this link:
https://archive.org/download/cutterspractical00vinc/cutterspractical00vinc.pdf
A couple of reviews.
Reviewer:
AncientAxim
-December 23, 2020
Subject:
Wow....
I wish I were more erudite as to be able to describe what I'm
seeing here- this is incredible. If only our clothes makers went by this
book (about all of them USED to, in olden days.. if not this one, a
book like it) can you imagine wearing outfits cut to precision like
this? The file itself is simply perfect and like the other review, high
resolution & scanned wonderfully (THANK you... ) what a blessed
relief from the miserable "google books" trash- don't let google get
hold of files like this- they'll destroy them.
Reviewer:
Ratspeed
-
October 20, 2012
Subject:
Holy Macaroni!
I certainly hope to see more of WDF Vincent's works scanned in
and OCRed as this one is! It's a veritable treasure trove of information
never before released, afaik, to the public, in a high-resolution,
professional format, in a copy that looks very well preserved. From what
it looks like this is at least the 1898 edition, judging by the
illustrations and layouts. Here's hoping that the men's editions are
also made available. The copies that have existed for years on
Costumer's Manifesto have been helpful but alas have always been in low
resolution, scanned in by flatbed scanners and are also omitting several
pages.
Have fun book hunting!
Enjoy
The Victorian Society of Alberta
