Hi all,
]If you don't want to read this entire post, there's a red, boldfaced question toward the bottom that tells what I'm looking for.]
Perhaps I'm a purist. Maybe I'm dragging some of my physical book collecting hangups over to my e-book collecting. Regardless, I seem to be flummoxed by "free" magic ebook collections that repackage public domain magic books. These sites frequently don't host original scans of the books, but rather HTML versions, many of which have been converted to PDF through unreliable means. I don't want the HTML versions, I want the original versions.
Here's an example. I go to the Learned Pig Project site, hosted by Lybrary.com. (Register, free, and you'll get access). There, I can get Jean Hugard's Mental Magic with Cards, or even all of Hugard's works on one CD. My sticking point is that the individual book is typical of most of the books on the site: They aren't scanned PDFs or other copies of the original book. Instead, they are HTML versions produced by Lybrary.com or by the mysterious Tarko the Great. My brief look at the book dates make me think that everything is public domain.
It seems to me that producing these HTML books would require a scan of the original books, which implies that such a scan exists somewhere. There are line drawings in most of these HTML books, and my guess is that they come from a scan rather than being re-drawn. But even with my (IMHO) advanced mastery of the Google Search syntax, I'm having a lot of trouble finding these original texts. I'm asking for help on that. I want to find the original PDFs.
One great site for finding old PDFs is The Internet Archive. There, I've found a few. They also sponsor a lending library in conjunction with The Open Library Project, which allows you to check out books in DRM-protected Adobe Digital Editions PDFs. It's trivial to remove the DRM, which has given me some of the books I'm looking for.
But it seems to me that the original books should be available somewhere, and I am at a loss on where to find them. True, the HTML versions give me the information, but my experience is that the files contain errors, and they are clearly from scanned books that have been run through OCR software. I wound up ordering a copy of Encyclopedia of Card Tricks because the Tarko the Great version was so flawed.
And that doesn't even consider products like the aforementioned Hugard's Collected Works. Everything on the list is in the public domain (excepting, of course, reprints by Dover or EZMagic, which are probably not the versions being sold). Yet Lybrary is asking $80 for the collection. Shouldn't I be able to find most of these myself? In areas of my life aside from magic, the internet is festooned with original versions of books. I can find Proust in many editions and languages for free, yet his magic-producing contemporary's books are hard to find. Frustrating.
So, fellow followers of léger de main and presto-digit-action, do you know of any sources for the original PDFs of the Learned Pig catalog? I've found lots of public domain books that aren't on the list, but these really nice books are eluding me. Any help is appreciated, and I'd be happy to put the public domain books in an easily accessible location for easy harvesting.
Thanks for reading,
lc
P.-S. Here's what I'm not interested in: materials that shouldn't be online. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found, e.g., PDF versions of Harry Lorayne's Close Up Card Magic or Paul Harris's SuperMagic. Nor am I the first to find the almost limitless supply of illegal videos available from torrent sites. Please don't ask how I found them, or for assistance in getting them. As a published author myself, I have fairly strong opinions on copyright and its infringement. What I want are the originals of the public domain books that populate sites like the Pig Project,
]If you don't want to read this entire post, there's a red, boldfaced question toward the bottom that tells what I'm looking for.]
Perhaps I'm a purist. Maybe I'm dragging some of my physical book collecting hangups over to my e-book collecting. Regardless, I seem to be flummoxed by "free" magic ebook collections that repackage public domain magic books. These sites frequently don't host original scans of the books, but rather HTML versions, many of which have been converted to PDF through unreliable means. I don't want the HTML versions, I want the original versions.
Here's an example. I go to the Learned Pig Project site, hosted by Lybrary.com. (Register, free, and you'll get access). There, I can get Jean Hugard's Mental Magic with Cards, or even all of Hugard's works on one CD. My sticking point is that the individual book is typical of most of the books on the site: They aren't scanned PDFs or other copies of the original book. Instead, they are HTML versions produced by Lybrary.com or by the mysterious Tarko the Great. My brief look at the book dates make me think that everything is public domain.
It seems to me that producing these HTML books would require a scan of the original books, which implies that such a scan exists somewhere. There are line drawings in most of these HTML books, and my guess is that they come from a scan rather than being re-drawn. But even with my (IMHO) advanced mastery of the Google Search syntax, I'm having a lot of trouble finding these original texts. I'm asking for help on that. I want to find the original PDFs.
One great site for finding old PDFs is The Internet Archive. There, I've found a few. They also sponsor a lending library in conjunction with The Open Library Project, which allows you to check out books in DRM-protected Adobe Digital Editions PDFs. It's trivial to remove the DRM, which has given me some of the books I'm looking for.
But it seems to me that the original books should be available somewhere, and I am at a loss on where to find them. True, the HTML versions give me the information, but my experience is that the files contain errors, and they are clearly from scanned books that have been run through OCR software. I wound up ordering a copy of Encyclopedia of Card Tricks because the Tarko the Great version was so flawed.
And that doesn't even consider products like the aforementioned Hugard's Collected Works. Everything on the list is in the public domain (excepting, of course, reprints by Dover or EZMagic, which are probably not the versions being sold). Yet Lybrary is asking $80 for the collection. Shouldn't I be able to find most of these myself? In areas of my life aside from magic, the internet is festooned with original versions of books. I can find Proust in many editions and languages for free, yet his magic-producing contemporary's books are hard to find. Frustrating.
So, fellow followers of léger de main and presto-digit-action, do you know of any sources for the original PDFs of the Learned Pig catalog? I've found lots of public domain books that aren't on the list, but these really nice books are eluding me. Any help is appreciated, and I'd be happy to put the public domain books in an easily accessible location for easy harvesting.
Thanks for reading,
lc
P.-S. Here's what I'm not interested in: materials that shouldn't be online. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found, e.g., PDF versions of Harry Lorayne's Close Up Card Magic or Paul Harris's SuperMagic. Nor am I the first to find the almost limitless supply of illegal videos available from torrent sites. Please don't ask how I found them, or for assistance in getting them. As a published author myself, I have fairly strong opinions on copyright and its infringement. What I want are the originals of the public domain books that populate sites like the Pig Project,
