New Books On The Web: Or Rather, Old Books On The Web One of the projects digitizing out-of-copyright books on the Web is Project Gutenberg. They have a website with software which allow anyone to proofread a page or a hundred. Or, if you can locate books which are out of copyright, you can become a project manager. The proofreading website is at: http://www.pgdp.net/ The following pre-1600 books are currently being proofread on the Project Gutenberg site: First Proofing Chaucer's Works. Down to just the last 2 volumes. The Works of John Gower. He lived 1330-1408. The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542. The English translation is out of round 1, but the Spanish original still has round 1 pages. Holinshed's Chronicles. Many volumes... Shakespeare learned his history from these books. Records of the Kirk of Scotland. Presbyterian intrigue at its finest. Mastro della Ballo. A handwritten Italian dance manual, 1614. Correspondance diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de La Mothe Fenelon, ambassadeur de France en Angleterre de 1568 a 1575 (6) [In French] Shakespeare and Music Child Ballads. Only a few of the texts are pre-1600, but these are very popular among the "traditional" music crowd. Complete Works of Robert Burns. None pre-1600, but still popular among the "traditional" folk. The Tragedies of Seneca. A Middle High German Primer The Oxford Book of Latin Verse To see completed books, see this more complete list of older books. Greg's TODO list contains: Caxton's Dialogues, awaiting scanning Cotgrave's 1611 French/English dictionary and grammar (image from bnf.fr) (queued) Palsgrave's 1530 French/English dictionary and grammar (image from bnf.fr) (awaiting OCR) Florio's 1611 dictionary (image from book) If we're missing any links, please suggest a new one. Here's a webpage about manuscript abbreviations, and one about English handwriting, 1500-1700. Return to the SCA Books Page.