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Alexandre Dumas
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(Open since March 2021) Clean up of The Three Musketeers series
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I'm a newer librarian so the magnitude of these changes is a little too intimidating for me to tackle with confidence, but just want to say I respect the amount of research you put into this.Perhaps try posting this in the "Looking for a Project?" forum instead.
gem wrote: "I'm a newer librarian so the magnitude of these changes is a little too intimidating for me to tackle with confidence, but just want to say I respect the amount of research you put into this.Perh..."
Thanks, I'll try that. I'm a little afraid that Looking for a Project is where requests go to die, but we'll see.
Well I tried to take care of some low-hanging fruit on this and feel like I just made things worse.Jennifer wrote: "- Please separate ASIN B0082V9S48 (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) from other editions of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne"; this is chapters 134-267 of of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, which does not line up with the chapter breakdown of the other popular editions combined in this record."
This has been done, but see note below because I may have separated the wrong version:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Jennifer wrote: "Please separate https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... Based on the page length (I'm unable to see the ASIN), this must be Le Vicomte de Bragelonne in its entirety, which is not the case for the other popular editions combined in this category."
This is the same book that you linked above. Did you possibly mean this edition (which I separated before realizing I possibly shouldn't have):
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Also to make matters worse, its ASIN is invalid (B003A84604) and the "Kindle $2.99" link incorrectly redirects to a Spanish version of the book. So I'm really not sure what to do with it.
Please let me know your thoughts on how to proceed.
gem wrote: "Well I tried to take care of some low-hanging fruit on this and feel like I just made things worse.Jennifer wrote: "- Please separate ASIN B0082V9S48 (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) fr..."
Thanks so much for your help! You didn't make things worse :)
ASIN B0082V9S48 definitely needed to be separated out from the others as it is only chapters 134-267 of of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne. I didn't realize I linked the same book twice (ASINs are no longer visible to non-librarians). Honestly, it may be worth editing the book description to include this information.
No comment on ASIN B003A84604. The cover looks like it's a Spanish version and that the Goodreads title is incorrect, but idk. It doesn't have many ratings/reviews so it's probably not worth the time it takes to figure it out: you could probably spend weeks or months filtering trough every record for Dumas to check for accuracy and correct errors…
Okay glad that at least one of my changes was useful. ^_^Note - You can see the ASIN by doing the following:
- Click "more editions" on the book page (link will be there even if there is only one edition).
- Should now see a list of all the book's editions; this is called the "work" page. Click the "more detail" link/button to see the ASIN for that edition.
gem wrote: "Okay glad that at least one of my changes was useful. ^_^Note - You can see the ASIN by doing the following:
- Click "more editions" on the book page (link will be there even if there is only one..."
Thanks for the tip. That works alright if a record only has one edition, but if there are dozens/hundreds/thousands of editions (and there are over 1100 editions of Ten Years Later), it takes way too long to hunt through all the editions to find the specific one I'd want the ASIN for.
Edit: Would love if you're able to help with some more of the low-hanging fruit of this request!
Yeah. the Goodreads system isn't very well equipped to handle 100s/1000s of entries for one work. It would be nice to have better filter options on that page. :[ Combining and separating for large works gets really sketchy, too.I was looking at the combine tasks you had listed, but noticed that you are requesting both Le Vicomte de Bragelonne I and II to be combined with Louise de la Vallière. Is that a typo or accurate? Each version has 100+ editions so changes of that size make me nervous.
I was also looking at "Please add La Colombe as an additional original title of Ellsworth’s version of The Red Sphinx." but I can't quite figure out what you want done. Do you want a title edited, or something combined? ELI5. ^o^
gem wrote: "Yeah. the Goodreads system isn't very well equipped to handle 100s/1000s of entries for one work. It would be nice to have better filter options on that page. :[ Combining and separating for large ..."Sorry, only Vol II should be combined with Louise de la Valliere: Vol I should be combined with https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6.... Though, honestly, this is just an educated guess since this is a three-book division that, based on the page count (edit: this is confirmed by the Wikipedia page, which is probably the source of this combination request originally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vic...), seems to align with Oxford's three-book division. These records are generally a mess, eg this record (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...) is combined as Vol I but obviously shouldn't be since it's 1/6 instead of 1/3…
Basically, the original breakdown (per Wikipedia) is as follows:
Part One: The Vicomte of Bragelonne (Chapters 1–93)
- Oxford's volume is basically the same, covering chapters 1-92
Part Two: Louise de la Vallière (Chapters 94–180)
- Oxford's volume is basically the same, covering chapters 93-179
Part Three: The Man in the Iron Mask (Chapters 181–269)
- Oxford's volume is basically the same, covering chapters 180-267 (+ 2 more chapters that aren't titled as chapters)
Re: The Red Sphinx, that edition is a combination of what was originally published as "Le sphinx rouge" and "La colombe" in French. Currently, Goodreads shows only "Le sphinx rouge" as the original title. I don't know how exactly this is supposed to be reflected in the "original title" field, but it should presumably be included?
Would someone be able to help with this?
About your first request, "Le sphinx rouge" and "La colombe" are two different works. Do you mean that edition contains both works?https://www.dumaspere.com/pages/dicti...
About the series, I don't think that the existing series on Goodreads is a mess. I think the Ellsworth’s series is a mess. The Three Musketeers Cycle is a trilogy:
1. Les Trois Mousquetaires
2. Vingt Ans après
3. Le Vicomte de Bragelonne
"Le sphinx rouge" and "La colombe" can be considered as a sort of spin-off. They don't belong to the original trilogy because the musketeers don't appear in these books at all. So my opinion is that the series on Goodreads is right in the way it is.
Saturn wrote: "About your first request, "Le sphinx rouge" and "La colombe" are two different works. Do you mean that edition contains both works?https://www.dumaspere.com/pages/dicti..."
That's right, they're combined!
Saturn wrote: "About the series, I don't think that the existing series on Goodreads is a mess. I think the Ellsworth’s series is a mess.
The Three Musketeers Cycle is a trilogy:
1. Les Trois Mousquetaires
2. V..."
Thanks for taking this on!
I'm fine with leaving Ellsworth's "The Red Sphinx" out of the non-Ellsworth versions of the series. Goodreads's policy on what qualifies as a series is weird and open to interpretation.
My characterization of the series as being "a mess" is more focused on the fact that because of the different divisions, the reading order of the current series makes no sense. There's a lot of duplication going on: for example, Ellsworth's "Court of Daggers" (Ch 51-95 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) is listed as Book 3.25; Oxford's "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" (Ch 51-91 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) listed as Book 3.1. And if you were to follow Oxford's "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" with Amazon's "Louise de la Vallière" (Ch 141-207 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne), currently listed as Book 3.3, you'd be missing 50 chapters of content.
And then there are all the "homeless" editions not currently on the list. Penguin's "The Man in the Iron Mask" (Ch 208-267 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) is Book 3.4, but Oxford's "The Man in the Iron Mask (Ch 179-267 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...) is not—and where would you even put it since it overlaps significantly, but not fully, with Amazon's "Louise de la Vallière"?
Trying to put all Three Musketeers content into a single series is just too confusing. Moreover, Goodreads has already addressed situation in this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
If a series has been reprinted with a different numbering, a second series should be created to hold the different numbering; the titles of all related series should reflect this and the descriptions of each series object should link to the other(s).A separate series needs to be created for each combination of books. I've suggested the ordering, titles, and description in my original posts.
Jennifer wrote: "If a series has been reprinted with a different numbering, a second series should be created to hold the different numbering; the titles of all related series should reflect this and the descriptions of each series object should link to the other(s).A separate series needs to be created for each combination of books. I've suggested the ordering, titles, and description in my original posts."
But this is a 180-years-old series, if a publisher choose to change a trilogy in a 9-books-series I'm not sure here on goodreads we should do the same. In France and other countries Le Vicomte de Bragelonne is pubblished as one single book (as it should be by the way). I think it would be very complicated to follow the decisions of each individual publisher, and probably not right either.
But maybe other more experienced librarians may agree with you.
Saturn wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "If a series has been reprinted with a different numbering, a second series should be created to hold the different numbering; the titles of all related series should reflect this a..."Creating multiple series based on different breakdowns by modern publishers is how Goodreads handles other older works like Livy's History of Rome, but I'll post in the policies folder for confirmation that this is acceptable!
Edit: Posted!
Saturn wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "If a series has been reprinted with a different numbering, a second series should be created to hold the different numbering; the titles of all related series should reflect this a..."Hi Saturn—GR staff responded here; she says to apply the policy that
If a series has been reprinted with a different numbering, a second series should be created to hold the different numbering; the titles of all related series should reflect this and the descriptions of each series object should link to the other(s).Is this still something you're interested in helping with?
Dumas' work was originally serialized, with each chapter published as a new installment. It is too long to publish in a single book (and some storylines were never completed by Dumas, while others are only tangentially related to the Musketeers themselves). Depending on what smaller story a publisher wants to tell and how they want to tell it, publishers choose a unique span of chapters to publish in their volume, which they will name after the original French. This means that two books with the same title may contain identical chapters; or they may be largely the same with only a couple chapters' difference at the beginning or end; or they may only have a relative few chapters in common and effectively be completely different books.
The original French publications may be loosely assembled into a series, comprised of the Three Musketeers trilogy interrupted by a detour focused on the Comte de Moret:
- Book 1: The Three Musketeers (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires ). The text of this is, mercifully, the same among most (presumably all) editions.
- Book 2: The Comte de Moret (French: Le Comte de Moret ); informally titled The Red Sphinx; or, Richelieu and his Rivals. Incomplete sequel that was serialized (the paper went bankrupt so it was never finished). None of the Three Musketeers appear, but it continues the stories of other characters and introduces the character of the Comte de Moret. Some consider this to be only a related series and not a necessary part of the Three Musketeers trilogy. Publication history is complicated, but it was not published as a single volume in France until long after Dumas’s death.
- Book 2.5: The Dove (French: La Colombe ). Novella. Can be read as a continuation and conclusion of the story of the Comte de Moret. Not translated to English prior to Ellsworth.
- Book 3: Twenty Years Later (French: Vingt Ans Après )
- Book 4: The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (French: Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard ). This book is giant, 267 chapters total (see here: https://www.logoslibrary.org/dumas/vi...) and in English is regularly divided into 3, 4, 5, or (supposedly) 6 individual books.
The standard division is three volumes, entitled 1. The Vicomte de Bragelonne, 2. Louise de la Vallière, and 3. The Man in the Iron Mask.
Sometimes “The Vicomte de Bragelonne”, ie Volume 1 of “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne”, is further divided into two volumes, “The Vicomte de Bragelonne” and “Ten Years Later,” making four volumes total. This seems to have only been the case with very old translations; however, it still means that some editions currently combined with the full-length “The Vicomte de Bragelonne” are not, in fact, the full thing.
Ellsworth plans to divide “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” into 5 parts, 1.Between Two Kings: Or, Ten Years Later, 2. Court of Daggers: Or, The Vicomte de Bragelonne 3. Devil’s Dance, 4. Shadow of the Bastille, and 5. The Man in the Iron Mask. “Between Two Kings” is the first half of the complete “The Vicomte de Bragelonne” as published by Oxford, and “Court of Daggers” is the second half plus the first two chapters of what Oxford publishes as “Louise de la Vallière.” “Devil’s Dance” is not yet published, so it’s unclear whether the final three volumes will match up with any others.
I didn't see any series that divides “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” into 6 parts; it very well could exist, but it's not one of the more popular ones.
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Request:
First of all, separate from the series issue, some of these editions need to be un-combined and have other adjustments made:
1. Please add La Colombe as an additional original title of Ellsworth’s version of The Red Sphinx. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
2. Ellsworth’s version of Twenty Years After is not the same as other versions as he includes only half of Vingt Ans Apres (the other half is in Blood Royal). They need to be separated. Details in this request: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...3. The Penguin (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...) and Oxford (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...) editions of “The Man in the Iron Mask” are not the same. They need to be separated. Details in this request: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...4. Similarly, the Amazon and Oxford editions of "Louise de La Vallière" don't match. Details here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
5. Dozens editions of "Ten Years Later" are incorrectly included in "The Vicomte de Bragelonne". They need to be extracted and added to the existing record for "Ten Years Later." Details in this request: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
6. Please separate ASIN B0082V9S48 (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) from other editions of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne"; this is chapters 134-267 of of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, which does not line up with the chapter breakdown of the other popular editions combined in this record.
7. Please separate https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... Based on the page length (I'm unable to see the ASIN), this must be Le Vicomte de Bragelonne in its entirety, which is not the case for the other popular editions combined in this category.
8. Please combine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... with https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
9. Please combine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... with https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
10. Please combine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... with https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
11. Please be aware that the record for “The Vicomte de Bragelonne” is likely a mess. The same title has been used for the third book in the Musketeers trilogy, Volume 1 of a three-volume breakdown of the third book in the Musketeers trilogy, and Part A of Volume 1 or a three-volume breakdown of the third book in the Musketeers trilogy. There are over 1100 editions of this record, to say nothing of the other few hundred that are scattered across Goodreads and yet to be combined. If you want to try and sort this out then be my guest, but I simply don't think it's possible.
Please address issues 2-7 before creating any new series.Next, here is the existing series on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/series/5513...
It is a mess. I would recommend scrapping it and starting fresh by creating multiple series, as per this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...Here are three series that I am suggesting be created in lieu of the existing one:
Series 1: The Musketeers Cycle (this is what the publisher is calling Ellsworth’s translations, and this series is based on his translations)
(Edit: this series has already been created: https://www.goodreads.com/series/3721... . Please add text acknowledging the other series to the beginning of the series description. This series should also be renamed to "Lawrence Ellsworth's Musketeers Cycle Series" in accordance with how he/his publisher is titling it. Books 8 and 9 also need to be created and added.)
- Book 1. The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
- Book 2. The Red Sphinx (Le Comte de Moret and La Colombe): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
- Book 3: Twenty Years After (volume 1 of Vingt Ans Après): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
- Book 4: Blood Royal (volume 2 of Vingt Ans Après): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
- Book 5: Between Two Kings (volume one of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... (full title: Between Two Kings: Or, Ten Years Later)
- Book 6: Court of Daggers (volume two of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... (full title: Court of Daggers: Or, The Vicomte de Bragelonne)
- Book 7: Devil’s Dance (volume three of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... (not yet published)
- Book 8: Shadow of the Bastille (volume four of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne): expected publication 2024, please add this edition
- Book 9: The Man in the Iron Mask (volume five of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne): expected publication 2025, please add this edition. Please do not combine with other editions of The Man in the Iron Mask as the divisions between books may not be the same.
Series 2: The d’Artagnan Romances (this series is based on a three-volume division of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, as prominently published by Oxford)
Book 1: The Three Musketeers https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Book 1.5: The Red Sphinx. Ellsworth seems to be the only English translator. Perhaps this could be labeled Book 1.5 as it is not really part of the main series. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Book 2: Twenty Years After https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Book 3: The Vicomte de Bragelonne https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Book 4: Louise de la Vallière https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Book 5: The Man in the Iron Mask https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Series 3: no idea what to title this one, maybe just “The Three Musketeers” or “The d’Aragnan Series”? (based on the four-volume division of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, which is published by Amazon)
Book 1: The Three Musketeers https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Book 1.5: The Red Sphinx. Ellsworth seems to be the only English translator. Perhaps this could be labeled Book 1.5 as it is not really part of the main series. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Book 2: Twenty Years After (ASIN B0082RHIEE) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Book 3: The Vicomte de Bragelonne (ASIN B0082XJVVG) (Ch. 1-75 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Book 4: Ten Years later (ASIN B0082XJJL8) (Ch. 76-140 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Book 4: Louise de la Vallière (ASIN B0083Z4PTQ) (Ch. 141-207 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Book 5: The Man in the Iron Mask (ASIN B07QNJBYJ4) (Ch. 208-267 of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... (Note that this covers the same content as Penguin's The Man in the Iron Mask)
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Thank you!