A. It's not an error; the word is an acceptable alternative (see your dictionary), and the other one has been taken by other publishers.

2. Why do so many of the books have "u" where "v" goes and vice versa? 

A. Where possible, we follow the spellings and typography in use at the time of the earliest editions, which in most cases we have provided, in HTML's best approximation to type facsimile, from title page to colophon. Many libraries do not have access to such editions, and it can be useful for students to spend a little time experiencing some of the context of the contemporary reading experience.

3. Why not use page images then?

A. These take up a lot of memory, load very slowly by modem, aren't searchable, and in many cases are under copyright as image, whereas as text they are in the public domain.

4. Why aren't there biographies and glossaries in most cases?

A.We are at present a volunteer operation. Everyone already has a day job. If you'd like to volunteer to help upgrade the texts, we'd be happy to hear from you.

5. Why aren't these texts in TEI conformant SGML? 

A. See answer to 4. above. SGML tagging is very time-consuming; we don't have anything against other people doing this with our texts, and in fact this has been done at the University of Virginia and elsewhere.

6.Why do you say these are not scholarly editions? They look pretty reliable to me.

A. The answer is closely related to the answers to questions 4 and 5. People make money for producing scholarly editions. Such editions tend to be prepared by someone with authority (read "with a doctorate"), typically one who specializes in the author, period, or genre, and who is editing within a context of the latest available scholarship and with access to any extant manuscripts. Some of RE's texts are, in fact, prepared by professors of English; this is true of all the Milton and Bacon titles. But they are in effect hobby editions, made available by the transcriber as found in, in many cases, nineteenth century editions, and chosen by virtue of availability and lack of copyright problems. These are hardly the editions that should be used by graduate students in thesis preparation; hence the disclaimer. 

7. What is this ERIS Project you seem to have gotten a lot of books from?

A. A major gopher-based collection of world classics in English, compiled by Virginia Tech, but now defunct at that site. Mirrored at the University of Adelaide Library. Texts are available there as zip archive files. Used by permission. Provenance otherwise unknown.

8. I can't find anything on the Web about [author's name]. Could you send me some information on (her/him); I have this paper to write.

A. Talk with your professor about appropriate sources and how to access and use them.

9. How did all this begin?

A. See this Brief History.

 

How to Participate

 
The dual mission of the Renascence Editions is to provide readable Web editions of early modern English works and translations to the general public and to provide a site for publication of such works. It is currently a strictly volunteer effort with no budget. Graduate students who are considering producing such texts as part of a term paper or thesis may find that publishing with Renascence Editions is a good way to gain exposure and recognition. Those working on a dissertation may prefer to work within "normal" channels of distribution so that issues of scholarship and peer review will not be problematical. We do, however, welcome dual publication if it has been cleared in advance (and in writing!) with your faculty advisor and publisher.
    Once we have agreed to work together, copyright issues will come first. We have cleared copyright on some source texts but not many, and if your interest lies outside our list (which it probably will), we will have to conduct some joint research. When we are satisfied that we are clear to proceed, type or scan your text to produce a clean ASCII file from the approved source, proofread it twice (this takes a lot more time and coffee than you're expecting) and forward it to Richard Bear as an email for markup. 
   Another available form of participation is to serve on our informal "board of advisors." This is by invitation, and consists in being subscribed to a discussion list maintained at the University of Oregon.