Proof-read and compare editions of Anne of Green Gables

A human girl: L. M. Montgomery, age 9, 1884

The Anne of Green Gables + Git Project

Why?

to significantly improve the quality of (open-source) transcriptions of the novel
to detect transcription errors by doing diffs between different transcriptions
to document errors and issues in the first editions
to document the variations between editions
to print a copy of the novel, using a robust text

You can also use the text to create your own e-book, in epub or mobi format.

Doing diffs with other transcriptions lets a proof-reader stand on the shoulders of others. That is the main point of this project.

Main Results So Far
Why Use git?
Two github Repositories
List of Current Branches
Lingo
Simple Scheme for Error Detection
Early Editions and Critical Editions
Scanned Books
Transcriptions From Other Folks
Distance Between Transcriptions
- Distance Between Transcriptions: Initial
- Distance Between Transcriptions: Updated
Policy For Typos/Errors
No Front Matter
Chapter Title Conventions
Proof-reading of 1908-LCP
Known Issues: 1908, 4th impression
- Issues: Errors (certain or likely): 22
- Issues: not actually errors?
- Issues: personal taste
Ways To Distinguish Provenance
- The Provenance of Project Gutenberg's 2016 Transcription
Issues In Specific Editions/Transcriptions
- 1946 Ryerson
- 2007 Norton
- Distributed Proofreaders Canada
- Wikisource
Example of Long Term Error Propagation
Errors By Edition
- Early editions, and transcriptions
- Modern editions
UTF-8 Encoding Everywhere
Character Issues
Standardized Line Breaks
Standardized Format
Toolkit
- Text Editor Recommendations

Main Results So Far

Result #1: a robust transcription of the uncorrected text of an early edition: 1908 L. C. Page (4th impression). This edition was chosen simply because it is the earliest available on archive.org. It was produced by proof-reading versus this copy-text on archive.org, by one person (John O'Hanley) over a 24 day period, and then (this is the important point) it was diffed with three other independent transcriptions to eliminate many transcription errors.

Result #2: a list of errors/issues with the 1908-LCP-4th text, gathered from critical editions and my own proof-reading.

Result #3: the above list of errors has been applied to the uncorrected text, and is available here as a separate transcription. For most people, this is the most useful item in this project. A raw listing of the actual differences between the uncorrected and corrected versions can be viewed here.

Result #4: I have detected issues in other transcriptions:

Distributed Proofreaders of Canada - 33 issues, 30 of which have been corrected as of 2021-01-09. The corrections were applied by Ross Cooling of fadedpage.com.
Wikisource - 113 issues, 111 of which have been corrected as of 2021-01-07. The corrections were applied by this project, James Tauber (working independently on his own project), and several Wikisource editors who graciously tracked down a few minor bugs over the course of several days.

Result #5: My transcription was accepted by Project Gutenberg, and published to their site on 2021-01-21. My transcription is now their second transcription (in English) of Anne of Green Gables. The first one has about 1,000 differences with the first edition of the novel. Many of those differences are caused by modernization and Americanization. The remaining differences are still numerous, and show significant, non-trivial changes to the text. My transcription, on the other hand, is much closer to the text of the first edition.

Why use git?

it can reflect different transcriptions/editions naturally using different branches
it lets you clearly see the variants (the diff) between editions
it lets you post improvements after each proof-reading cycle
it's a widely used, robust tool, well-suited to the job

Two github Repositories

This project has two github repositories, not one:

anne-of-green-gables: a repo for documentation (which you're reading now), with one branch only.
anne-of-green-gables-editions: a repo for various transcriptions of Anne of Green Gables, with one branch for each transcription. Branches can also be created for applying corrections/edits to a transcription. Merging between branches is not a typical operation in this project. The main requirement is simply to do diffs between branches.

List of Current Branches

The master branch has only empty stub files for each chapter.

The main outputs of this project are on these branches:

1908-LCP-4th - with no corrections applied to any errors (warts and all). The copy-text is the L. C. Page, 1st edition, 4th impression.
1908-LCP-4th-corrected - these errors in the text have been corrected. This is the branch that most people should use.
1908-LCP-4th-pg - intended for input to Project Gutenberg. Only the most serious errors are corrected.
1908-LCP-4th-jo - intended for John O'Hanley's personal use. Extends the 1908-LCP-4th-corrected branch, and applies a number of edits according to John's personal taste.

Transcriptions by other parties, used for diffing with respect to this project's transcription:

DIG-DPC-2008-05 - a copy of the transcription from Distributed Proofreaders of Canada. The copy-text is 1946 Ryerson Press.
DIG-DPC-2008-05-B - Second cycle of error detection/correction, after initial corrections applied.
DIG-WIK-1908-11th - a copy of the transcription from Wikisource. The copy-text is 1908 L. C. Page, 11th impression.
DIG-WIK-1908-11th-B - Second cycle of error detection/correction, after initial corrections applied.
DIG-GUT-0000 - a copy of the 2016 transcription from Project Gutenberg. The copy-text is not stated. It seems to be a mix of different sources.

Lingo

copy-text - the exact book which is being transcribed (identified by publisher, year, impression, and so on).
transcription - the content of the copy-text, in a text file. The text file is usually proof-read by one or more humans.
transcription error - a mismatch between the copy-text and its transcription.
branch - in a version control system (such as git), a branch is a separate, parallel stream, containing a sequence of revisions of files. In this project, different copy-texts get different branches for their transcriptions. Each branch can have multiple revisions of its transcription.
diff - the result of comparing two revisions of a file (often across different branches). Shows the textual variations, the places where the two revisions differ in any way. Here's an example of a tool showing a diff.

Simple Scheme for Error Detection

From what I can see, the groups on the web that provide transcriptions don't talk to each other. They don't compare their transcriptions to the output of other similar groups.

The idea of this project is simply that doing diffs on independent transcriptions is an easy way to find a large number of errors, and significantly increase accuracy.

Some ad hoc lingo, for the nonce:

TE(A) - the transcription errors in a single transcription A.
UTE(A, B, C) - the universal transcription errors common to a set of transcriptions A, B, C. That is, the transcription errors repeated in exactly the same way across all members of a set of transcriptions A, B, and C.

Work Flow For Improving My Transcription

First I do a full proof-read of my transcription. diff eliminates most errors

Then, for each of the other transcriptions A, B, C:

I do a diff between me and the other transcription
for each difference, I find out if it's a real textual difference in the copy-text, or a transcription error. I do this by visually comparing directly with the copy-text itself (for example on archive.org).
if it's a transcription error, then I fix one of the transcriptions (in rare cases, both). In this case, I'm removing one item from TE(me) or TE(A). Note that only the non-universal transcription errors are found using this technique.

At the end of the process, what's left over is UTE(A, B, C, me), the universal transcription errors, the ones that are exactly the same in all of the transcriptions.

The UTE(A, B, C, me) errors are more difficult to deal with. They can't be found by doing diffs, since they are present in all of the input transcriptions. Can they be detected using other means? In a few isolated cases, yes. If a policy of Americanization or modernization has been applied to all transcriptions, then that policy can be reversed, in whole or in part, by writing a simple find-replace script to change the transcription. But those are special cases (marked as 'known', in the above diagram).

Rule 1: All non-universal errors can be eliminated by doing diffs.

TE(me) ⇒ UTE(A, B, C, me)

At the end of the process described above, the transcription errors in my output equal the universal transcription errors across all of the inputs. This expresses the benefit of doing diffs.

Rule 2: Independent transcriptions having no common ancestor are best.

It's best that each transcription be as independent from the others as possible:

different copy-text
different OCR (optical character recognition) machine/software
different proof-readers
different organizations

Such independence pushes the system in the direction of avoiding universal transcription errors.

Somewhat surprisingly, it's beneficial to even use different editions of the source text. For example, this project uses a transcription of a 1946 edition of Anne of Green Gables to produce a transcription of the 1908 edition (4th impression). This is beneficial because it ensures more independence of transcriptions. It's not a problem, because the real textual diffs between 1908 and 1946 are small, and are detected and accounted for by the work flow described above.

Rule 3: In the end, for a large text, you'll never be sure that you have reduced TE(me) to zero.

A computer can compute an exact result only when all of the data is present. But in this case, one half of the data is in a physical book, outside the computer. That's the problem. Still, you can increase your level of confidence in a transcription by using the above technique.

Early Editions and Later Critical Editions

The following is based on the Norton critical edition, by Rubio and Waterston, which has an excellent summary of the main editions.

See also the bibliography of Montgomery's works, published in 1986 by the University of Waterloo Library (Russell, Russell, and Wilmshurst). Archive.org requires login for this book, but the cost is free.

The main early editions, from which others are derived, are marked in bold below:

1908-LCP
1925-LCP
1925-GGH

Label	Publisher	Description
1908-LCP	L. C. Page	First edition, April. Boston, USA. Many subsequent impressions, with error corrections.
1908-PIT	Sir Isaac Pitnam	London, UK. Plates from Page. First British edition.
1914-G&D	Grosset and Dunlap	New York, USA. Lower quality paper and printing, cheaper book. Plates from Page.
1916-LCP	L. C. Page	40th impression, gifted from author to her son. Montgomery made no manual corrections to it. Best version of LMM-approved text?
1920-LCP	L. C. Page	Movie edition, re-issued to coincide with a film release. Uses 1908 plates.
1924-Cornstalk	Cornstalk	Sydney, Australia.
1925-LCP	L. C. Page	New plates. Boston, USA. Fairly close to the 1908 edition.
1925-GGH	George G. Harrap	New plates, distinct from Page's new plates. London, UK. Not as close to the 1908 edition. Changes to a British style. Corrects some errors of Page. Many diffs with Page.
1942-RP	Ryerson	First Canadian edition. Toronto, Canada. Uses the 1925-LCP plates (according to 2007-NCE).
1965-RP	Ryerson	Toronto, Canada. Illustrated.
1997-OUP	Oxford University	New York, USA. Annotated edition. Not close to 1908. Draws from holograph (manuscript) and 1925 GGH. Bit unusual.
2004-BP	Broadview Press	Peterborough, Canada. Close to 1908.
2007-NCE	W. W. Norton	New York, USA. Critical edition. Very close to 1908.
2017-PC	Penguin Classics	New York, USA. Close to 1908.
2019-NM	Nimbus	Transcription of the manuscript. Halifax, Canada. Additions, deletions, and changes.

Artifacts in the Steps of Publishing the Novel

Step	Description	Lost?
Manuscript (holograph)	Hand-written by Montgomery. Preserved at the Confederation Centre of the Arts.	No
Typescript	Typed by Montgomery, and sent to the publisher.	Yes
Uncorrected proof(s)	Produced by the publisher from plates, for correction by the author.	Yes
Corrected proof(s)	With author's corrections.	Yes
Published book	As sold to the public.	No

Interesting remarks from the critical edition of Rubio and Waterston:

regarding Page's 40th impression, published in 1916: "no other copy-text can claim to represent her final intentions as much as this 1908 edition."
"Montgomery gave no personal input into either of these completely new 1925 editions."
regarding the two new 1925 editions: "However, a careful comparison of the newly set Harrap and L. C. Page texts (which are very different in themselves) reveals a common line of descent—not from the manuscript but from the lost typescript."

Scanned Books

Some editions have been imaged and made available on the web, mostly by archive.org. The first edition, 1st impression is from kindredspaces.ca and its Ryrie-Campbell Collection of early editions of the novel.

Date	Publisher	Description
1908-04	L. C. Page	1st impression. (I didn't know about this scan when I started the project.)
1908-09	L. C. Page	4th impression. Some pages are missing small parts of the text (on the sides).
1909-08	L. C. Page	11th impression.
1915-02	Grosset and Dunlap	39th impression. Based on Page's plates.
1926-02	L. C. Page	59th impression, presumably from the 1925-LCP plates.
1930-10	George G. Harrap	From the 1925-GGH plates. Low quality scan. Problems near the spine.
1933	Angus & Robertson	Sydney, Australia. Based on Page's plates.
1946-11	Ryerson Press	Based on their 1942 edition. Uses the 1925-LCP plates.

There are plans to make images of the manuscript available in 2022. Montgomery's handwriting is hard to read. Most would prefer the book edited by C. S. Collins.

Transcriptions From Other Folks

Faded Page - Companion site to Distributed Proofreaders Canada. Their copy-text is the 1946-11 Ryerson edition (see link above). With the many corrections recently applied, this transcription is now fairly close to my transcription. Some remaining differences are simply differences in the underlying copy-text.
Project Gutenberg (2016 version) - They usually get texts from Distributed Proofreaders, but not in this case. They don't even indicate the copy-text. See below for clues that indicate the copy-text is derived from multiple sources. This transcription has many differences with 1908-LCP.
Wikisource - Their copy-text is 1908-LCP, 11th impression. With the many corrections recently applied, this transcription is now very close to my transcription (for 1908-LCP, 4th impression).
Standard Ebooks - apparently uses Project Gutenberg as source of their text. (I don't know if they have proof-read/edited the text themselves. I suspect not.) I haven't used their transcription in this project, but it's useful to mention them as a possible source people might use.

A common issue: there seems to be no easy way to evaluate the probable quality of a transcription.

Distance Between Transcriptions

Two transcriptions can differ from each other for various reasons:

transcription errors
real differences in the underlying copy-text
corrections to real errors in the underlying copy-text
minor differences that don't change the meaning of the text (modernizing to-day to today, Americanizing parlour to parlor, hyphenation, and so on)

It would be very unusual if two transcriptions of a long novel were absolutely identical.

Various stats can be used to quantify how different two transcriptions are. For example, here are some stats output by git's diff command. They show the distance between the 1908-LCP-4th branch and this project's initial snapshots of other transcriptions. The smaller the number, the more similar they are.

Distance Between Transcriptions: Initial

Branch	Copy-text	Chapters Differ	+	-
*1908-LCP-4th*	1908-4th	0/38	0+	0-
1908-LCP-4th-corrected	1908-4th	16/38	25+	25-
DIG-WIK-1908-11th	1908-11th	38/38	175+	184-
DIG-DPC-2008-05	1946-RP	38/38	175+	182-
DIG-GUT-0000	Unknown	38/38	972+	977-

Of the three transcriptions that come from other parties, the Project Gutenberg 2016 transcription is the only one that has modernized and Americanized the spelling. That contributes to the larger number for that transcription.

The 1946-RP text uses the 1925-LCP plates, so the underlying copy-text is more distant from 1908. At the same time, this project found fewer transcription errors for DPC than for Wikisource.

Distance Between Transcriptions: Updated

Here's the listing for updated snapshots of other transcriptions as of 2021-01-07, reflecting recent changes to the transcriptions.

Branch	Copy-Text	Chapters Differ	+	-	Summary	Details
*1908-LCP-4th*	1908-4th	0/38	0+	0-	n/a	n/a
1908-LCP-4th-corrected	1908-4th	16/38	25+	25-	summary	diffs
DIG-WIK-1908-11th-B	1908-11th	17/38	29+	28-	summary	diffs
DIG-DPC-2008-05-B	1946-RP	33/38	107+	108-	summary	diffs
DIG-GUT-0000	Unknown	38/38	993+	1003-	summary	diffs

Links to the detailed diffs require a lot of horizontal scrolling. It's recommended to download the file from github.

You can see that my transcription is now quite close to those of Wikisource and Distributed Proofreaders Canada. The DPC transcription is further away than Wikisource because its underlying copy-text is further away.

Policy For Typos/Errors

Almost every copy-text has items that could be corrected in some way (typos and so on). In this project, absolutely all such corrections are handled by using multiple branches in git:

the core branch for an edition will have zero corrections for typos applied to it.
secondary branches, branched off of the core, are used to apply all corrections to the copy-text, including basic corrections for egregious typos.

Some corrections are for egregious and obvious typos, but other corrections are more subtle. (An example of a subtle correction is to change the spelling of Macpherson to MacPherson.) The policy of what to apply as a correction, and what not to apply, is a decision that can be made in many different ways. That policy is best relegated to a secondary branch, and not to the core data. The core data remains the core data, without ambiguity, exactly matching the copy-text (we hope), while different policies for applying corrections can be applied at will in a secondary branch off of the core.

No Front Matter

The transcription produced by this project captures the contents of the 38 chapters of the book. Items outside the chapters, including the table of contents and dedication, aren't captured here. (That being said, errors in the table of contents of 1908-LCP are noted below.)

Chapter Title Conventions

The chapter titles are to be placed on the first line of each chapter. The chapter title appears in the file names, but that is for convenience only. The official chapter title is the first line of the text file. For example, if you wish to put a comma in the title of Diana is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results, then just alter the first line of the file for that chapter. Don't change the name of the file. That would mess things up.

Proof-reading of 1908-LCP

This project has proof-read the L. C. Page 1908 4th impression, using scans on archive.org. The proof-reading was done on screen (not on paper, unfortunately), using the Eclipse code editor. In addition to proof-reading the text, the project has used diffs (in the Eclipse code editor) with respect to other transcriptions, using the technique described above. The other transcriptions used are:

Distributed Proofreaders of Canada (1946-RP)
Wikisource (1908-LCP, 11th impression)
Project Gutenberg (2016 version; copy-text not stated; possibly derived from various sources)

After proof-reading each chapter, a number of proof-reading errors were corrected by doing diffs with these other transcriptions. Here are the number of such corrections for each chapter:

	1908-LCP-4th
Ch. 01	JO(4)
Ch. 02	JO(3)
Ch. 03	JO(5)
Ch. 04	JO(4)
Ch. 05	JO(2)
Ch. 06	JO(4)
Ch. 07	JO(0)
Ch. 08	JO(0)
Ch. 09	JO(3)
Ch. 10	JO(10)
Ch. 11	JO(3)
Ch. 12	JO(2)
Ch. 13	JO(1)
Ch. 14	JO(5)
Ch. 15	JO(7)
Ch. 16	JO(5)
Ch. 17	JO(3)
Ch. 18	JO(4)
Ch. 19	JO(2)
Ch. 20	JO(4)
Ch. 21	JO(6)
Ch. 22	JO(4)
Ch. 23	JO(4)
Ch. 24	JO(2)
Ch. 25	JO(4)
Ch. 26	JO(1)
Ch. 27	JO(2)
Ch. 28	JO(4)
Ch. 29	JO(7)
Ch. 30	JO(7)
Ch. 31	JO(4)
Ch. 32	JO(5)
Ch. 33	JO(2)
Ch. 34	JO(9)
Ch. 35	JO(1)
Ch. 36	JO(4)
Ch. 37	JO(7)
Ch. 38	JO(3)
Total	147

Proof-readers/Editors:

Initials	Name
JO	John O'Hanley

Known Issues: 1908, 4th impression

There are different types of issues encountered in this text. A small number are serious, some are mejum, but most are weeny-teeny. They are collected here to aid those who wish to edit the text, and produce their own version. For more information, see the modern critical editions listed above.

I have divided these issues into two kinds:

errors: the text is either certainly or very likely in error in some way. The idea is to stop the errors from propagating.
matters of taste: in my own opinion, changes that I would consider.

Any such division is arbitrary, and opinions will assuredly differ. Nevertheless, I think it's helpful to others to make this kind of separation.

Issues: Errors (certain or likely): 22

Some issues are repeated, for a total of 27 actual occurrences in the text.

Rachael Lynde
[Table of Contents, Ch. 1 and Ch. 9]. Change to match how the name is spelled throughout the body of the text: 'Rachel'.

people called “Rachel Lynde’s husband—was sowing
[Ch. 01, p2-3]. The right-quote is missing. The text is split across two pages in this case. 2007-NCE says this was corrected between the 5th impression and the 12th impression. The 11th impression shows a change, but it's still in error, since there are two opening quotes.

suggested getting a Barnado boy.
[Ch. 01, p8]. Misspelled. Should be 'Barnardo', as in MS. According to 2007-NCE: only 1924-Cornstalk has 'Barnardo'; both 1925-LCP and 1927-GGH use 'Home boy' instead.

A merchant in Hopeton last winter
[Ch. 02 , p19]. Misspelled. Should be 'Hopetown'. Occurs in 3 places in the novel: Hopetown, Hopeton, Hopeton. MS always has Hopetown. The second occurrence:

[Ch. 05 , p57]: the asylum at Hopeton

a soul that had been wondering afar
[Ch. 02, p26]. Change to 'wandering'. Match the MS.

‘The Seasons’ by James Thompson.
[Ch. 05, p58] Change to 'Thomson'. This is a real author, whose name has been misspelled.

* infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being,
[Ch. 07, p71] The comma after unchangeable should really be after eternal. That will match the punctuation of the original text. The Annotated Anne of Green Gables points to this misquoted catechism as the source of the quote (page 32).

anl then studied diligently
[Ch. 8, p82] Change to 'and'. This error is present in the 1st impression, and absent in the 4th impression. This is the only difference that I'm currently aware of between the 1st and 4th impressions.

echo lived there
[Ch. 08, p84] The period is missing after 'there'. Seems to be a defect in the printing, not in the image. The period is present but weak in the 11th impression, and definitely present in 39th impression.

cooky to eat with it along in the afternoon
[Ch. 16, p170] Change to 'along with it'. Match the MS. Seems to be a clear grammatical error. Annotated makes this correction.

* about its being all right
[Ch. 16, p180] Change 'its' to 'it'. MS has 'its' as well. Seems like an error in grammar. There's nothing possessive here. The text is in the narrator's voice, and doesn't seem to be colloquial. In chapter 14 there's a second occurrence of about its, but in Anne's voice, not the narrator's voice.

to forget, said Anne
[Ch. 16, p169] Missing end quote.

but after awhile
[Ch. 19, p223] Change to 'a while'. The noun phrase 'a while' has two words. The adverb form 'awhile' is a single word. Chapter 16 uses 'awhile' correctly. This issue isn't noted in any critical edition that I've seen. But it is corrected in the Penguin/Puffin edition of 2008 (which may in turn be derived from some earlier edition.) Other occurrences that should be changed to a while (two words):

[Ch. 25, p284]: sat for awhile
[Ch. 26, p286]: Perhaps after awhile
[Ch. 29, p328]: at night once in awhile
[Ch. 37, p416]: I meant to, after awhile

Bitterly did she resent the license
[Ch. 20, p231] Misspelled, should be 'repent'. 2007-NCE says this error was corrected in the 5th impression.

it is much as he did
[Ch. 25, p272] Missing the word 'as'. Make it read 'it is as much as he did'. This will match the MS, and later editions.

* Let you and I have
[Ch. 26, p293] Change to 'Let’s'.

in Death Not Divided
[Ch. 26, p290]. Capitalize to 'In'. Match the MS. Annotated makes this change.

Hills peeped o’er hill, and Alps
[Ch. 31, p353] Change to 'hills'. Match the MS, and the original text of the quote of Alexander Pope.

Spurgeon stayed resolutely away
[Ch. 32, p365] Missing period after 'away'.

yellowish-brown wincey
[Ch. 34 , p384] Change to agree with chapter 2, which describes the same dress as 'yellowish grey wincey' (no hyphen).

Josiah Allen’s wife
[Ch. 38, p424] Capitalize to 'Wife'. This will correctly match the name of the referenced fictional character.

told her Thomas that night.
[Ch. 38, p426] Period should be a comma or a colon, 'night,' or 'night:'. MS has a comma. In chapter 15, some paragraphs end in a comma (unusual), just before a character begins speaking.

* I haven't seen this issue mentioned elsewhere.

Issues: not actually errors?

Our spirits can comune.
[Ch. 17, p190] The correct spelling is commune, but this probably shouldn't be corrected, since Anne misspells several words in her letter: comune, busum, improoving. Annotated silently changes the spelling to commune, but leaves the spelling of the other two words. In this respect, they are matching the MS. It seems that 1925-GGH changes to 'commune' (example from 1930). It seems that 1925-LCP also changes to 'commune' (example from 1933.) I disagree with these later editions. I think the intent of the author was to intentionally misspell three words in the letter, not two, and that the spelling of the first edition should be preserved.

pail the barge
[Ch. 28, p310] Change to 'pall'. Match the MS. 2007-NCE says that this error in the first impression was actually corrected in the 4th impression, so it's not visible in the above link. But wait! This 1st impression does not have the error. What's going on?

Coincidentally, I found a similar error when reading the novel Germinie Lacerteux. It has this mistake, where the French word elle is poorly printed, and appears as eile instead. Such a misprint would change pall to pail.

Issues: personal taste

In the list below, I list some issues that I personally would like to examine when creating my own version of the text. They are a matter of opinion. Don't take them too seriously. I'm just noting them here for my own benefit. You can take them as an example of the kind of edits someone might make to the core text, according to their taste. These speed bumps are places in the text where, while reading, my attention is distracted from the make-believe world of the story to the real world of thinking about the text's style.

And as for the risk...
[Ch. 01, p10]. Risk...risks...risks: should all three instances of 'risk' be either singular or plural? Colloquial speech.

It is a kind of pretty place.
[Ch. 02, p26]. Change to 'kind of a pretty place'. Match the MS.

That’s Barry’s pond
[Ch. 02, p28]. Capitalize to Pond. This place name occurs elsewhere in a number of places in the text. Might change 'Shore Road' in the same way.

Call you Cordelia!
[Ch. 03, p35]. Change the exclamation mark to a question mark. Why is she yelling? The Annotated Anne of Green Gables makes this change, but they don't note it as a change.

said Marilla sharply, eying her
[Ch. 03, p37]. Change to 'eyeing'. The UK spelling 'eying' just looks odd.

four dark, low-turned posts
[Ch. 03, p39]. Change to 'four dark, low, turned posts'. Match the MS.

Suppose she wasn’t really going to stay here!
[Ch. 04, p43]. Seems completely backward from the intended sense. Why express enthusiasm for the undesired alternative? Move the exclamation point to the next sentence? Italicize 'was'? The author uses an exclamation point here not for expressing a positive feeling, but for expressing a strong feeling. Chapter 31 has a similar sentence: 'Suppose they did not pass!'.

held his tongue,—but this at least was natural,—so that
[Ch. 04, p47]. The commas are superfluous, since the em dashes already do the work.

beating a retreat down cellar after potatoes.
[Ch. 04, p50]. Change to 'down to the cellar'? Strange wording, similar to 'down-stairs', but with two words.

saw that aggravating Matthew
[Ch. 04 , p52]. Ambiguous, poorly worded; what 'that' means is clear only after re-reading the sentence. Saw that 'she was' aggravating?

Mrs. Peter has a large family
[Ch. 06, p63]. The woman is named in 3 ways, in this order: 'Mrs. Peter Blewett', 'Mrs. Peter', and 'Mrs. Blewett'. Could her first name really have been Peter? Or is that her husband's first name? It seems entirely intentional on Montgomery's part. 'Mrs. Peter' reminds me of 'Mrs. Rachel' for Mrs. Rachel Lynde. Chapter 16 has 'Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross', 'Mrs. Chester Ross'.

picking them— I wouldn’t want
[Ch. 08, p86] Extra space after the em dash; still present in the 39th impression. Is this just an artifact of text justification?

at touch of that thin little hand
[Ch. 10, p107] Change to 'the touch'. Annotated does this.

as plain as waist and skirt and tight as sleeves
[Ch.11 , p109]. Add a comma somewhere? After 'skirt'?

Nothing daunted Anne proceeded onward
[Ch. 11, p112]. Add a comma after 'daunted'? See reference.

nor ‘Midian,’ either, but it sounds
[Ch.11, p115]. Remove the comma after Midian? Not in MS.

Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears
[Ch. 12, p118]. Remove the comma?

in from the yard, eyes shining,
[Ch. 13, p126]. Printing defect. The comma is barely visible; make sure it's there.

between our farm and Mr. Barry’s.
[Ch. 13, p129]. Should the statement be a question?

Diana whispered to Anne,
[Ch. 15, p154]. Unusual to have a paragraph end with a comma.

in a piercing whisper,
[Ch. 15, p156]. Unusual to have a paragraph end with a comma.

she had been called “carrots.”
[Ch. 15, p157]. Capitalize 'Carrots'.

a crow and being called carrots
[Ch. 15, p159]. Capitalize 'Carrots'.

acksually never seen anything like it
[Ch. 15, p161]. Change to 'ackshually'. Restore MS. Annotated does this.

and she ought to know something about it
[Ch. 15, p164]. Change to 'so'. Restore MS. Annotated does this.

it’s beginning to work.
[Ch. 16, p170] Change 'work' to 'go' (as in go bad). Match the MS, and 1925-GGH. I've never heard an Islander use 'work' in this way. In the Cdn Oxford Dict., one definition of 'to work' is 'to ferment'. Is this usage of 'go' in the Pratt/Burke Dictionary?

the second shelf of the room pantry
[Ch. 16, p173] Change to 'sitting-room'. Annotated does this, but MS has 'room' only.

said Diana stanchly,
[Ch. 17, p185]. Change 'stanchly' to 'staunchly'. Do the same in chapter 33.

Ella May Macpherson gave her
[Ch. 17, p187]. Change 'Macpherson' to 'MacPherson', to match other occurrences in the book. The MS actually has 'McPherson' at this place.

And Gil— I mean some
[Ch. 17, p192] Extra space after the em dash. Is this just an artifact of text justification? Similar to an issue in chapter 8 (above).

There’s another, not a sister,
[Ch. 19, p215]. The original text has no italics for 'not'.

Doctor Spencer would go too,
[Ch. 18, p198]. Reads better with a period. MS has a period, so does Annotated.

the frogs were singing silverly sweet
[Ch. 20, p226]. Change to 'silvery', as in the MS, and in 1925-GGH.

a minister’s family to tea.
[Ch. 21, p240]. Change 'family' to 'wife', as in MS. It was stated previously in the text that the couple is childless. Annotated does this, and I agree.

but steadily ate away at it.
[Ch. 21, p244]. Change to 'ate steadily'. Restore to MS. Annotated does this too.

girls said, “Oh!”
[Ch. 23, p256]. Remove the comma after 'said'. MS has the comma.

blame it on anybody I would
[Ch. 23, p260]. Change to 'anybody else'. Match the MS, and Annotated.

Remained only Mrs. Lynde
[Ch. 25, p276]. Change to 'There remained only'.

Have you something particular in mind?
[Ch. 25, p276]. Change to 'anything'. Match the MS. Annotated has 'anything in particular in mind'.

like them made in the new way.
[Ch. 25, p277]. Change to 'made'. Match the MS, and Annotated.

Moody Spurgeon was “licked;”
[Ch. 26, p287]. Should the semi-colon be outside the quotation marks? Match the MS.

to light her down cellar
[Ch. 27, p300] Change to 'light her way'. Is this an error, or intended?

Gilbert had called her “carrots”
[Ch. 28, p315] Capitalize 'Carrots'.

took us up to the grand stand
[Ch. 29, p326] Change to 'grandstand', one word. Match MS. Match the Cdn Oxford Dict.

the last moonlight night
[Ch. 30, p334] Change to 'moonlit'?

build anything really worth while
[Ch. 30, p335] Change to 'worthwhile'? Both forms exist, according to the Cdn Oxford Dict. 'Worth while' also occurs in chapter 35, on page 396.

tucked ‘Ben-Hur’ between the desk
[Ch. 30, p335] 'Ben-Hur' is spelled without the hyphen everywhere else. Make consistent.

studying for the entrance.
[Ch. 30, p338] Two spellings seen in 1908 and the MS, 'entrance' and 'Entrance'. Make consistent.

she did it, so successfully
[Ch. 30, p343] Remove the comma. Match the MS.

When Marilla was not at Aid meeting
[Ch. 30, p346] Change to 'the Aid meeting'.

the Spencervale doctor and a heart
[Ch. 31, p349] Add a comma after 'doctor'?

adorned to the queen’s taste.
[Ch. 33, p372] Capitalize to 'Queen’s'? The time frame of the novel is never precisely stated, as far as I know. Does this sentence imply that the action is taking place in the Victorian era? Queen Victoria died in 1901, and was succeeded by a male monarch.

to take on so
[Ch. 34, p386] Perhaps put in quotation marks, “take on”, to match the MS.

teacher’s provincial license, Class First,
[Ch. 34, p391] Perhaps change to 'First Class', which is used elsewhere in the text. The MS has 'Class First'.

handsome young lady, now
[Ch. 35, p393] Put the comma after 'now', not 'lady'. Match the MS.

professor Tremaine
[Ch. 35, p398] Capitalize to 'Professor'. Match the MS, and common practice.

brought from the office
[Ch. 37, p409] Change to 'post-office'. The MS has 'brought in from the office'.

“Yes”—briefly.
[Ch. 37, p416] Bizarre. Meaning that she responds curtly to the question?

to stay home and teach there
[Ch. 38, p423] Add a comma after 'teach'. Without a comma, 'there' erroneously refers to Avonlea, on first reading.

General speed bump issue: there are many times when the speech of the characters seems slightly too formal for rural Islanders. For example, contractions such as it is versus it's.

In chapter 5:

if I hadn't had an imagination
if I hadn't an imagination (as in the manuscript)

In chapter 15:

Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had
Marilla, that is the first compliment I ever had (as in Ryerson 1946, more colloquial)

For Anne in particular, Montgomery is trying to walk a delicate tight-rope: when young, her diction is part rural, part polished. It's hard to know where to draw the line.

General speed bump issue: the persistent use of quotations to refer to items: titles, idiom, and so on. I would prefer italics.

General speed bump issue: the spelling isn't completely consistent. Here are some examples, with the number of occurrences of each variant:

Lovers’ Lane / Lover’s Lane (10/5)
pedlar / peddler (4/1)
for ever / forever (16/7)
far-away / far away (2/7)

Ways To Distinguish Provenance

It's fun to try and guess the provenance of a given text, to see where it might come from. Modern non-critical editions of the book often don't state the source text explicitly. You may want to play detective and guess at the possible origin of the text. This game is uncertain because editions can make use of:

Americanization (parlor, not parlour)
modernization (today, not to-day)
spell-checkers
multiple sources for the text
arbitrary changes made by an editor

The following applies to early editions only. See 2007-NCE and Annotated for more info.

There is a sentence in chapter 16 which is distinct between three main early editions. It happens when Anne discovers that Diana got drunk on 'raspberry cordial':

1908-LCP: face downward on the sofa in an agony
1925-GGH: face downward on the sofa in agony
1925-LCP : face downwards on the sofa in an agony (same as 1942-RP)
1924-Cornstalk : face downwards on the sofa in an agony (same as 1925-LCP)

1908-LCP and 1925-LCP can also be distinguished using these characteristics:

chapter 1: Barnado boy in 1908, and Home boy in 1925
chapter 1: Hopetown in 1908, and Hopeton in 1925
chapter 17: The presence of comune maps to editions prior to 1925 (I think). Anne's letter has three intentional spelling errors in it: comune, busum, and improoving, as in 1908. Both 1925-GGH and 1925-LCP (I think) revert the spelling of one of the three words to commune. (In modern editions, editors can unwittingly apply spell-checkers to these words.)

1925-LCP has these characteristic errors that identify it:

chapter 14: beatification is changed to beautification
chapter 14: all ready is changed to already
chapter 19: ecstasy is misspelled as ecstacy

I don't know if these 1925-LCP errors were ever corrected. They are still present in 1946-RY. Ryerson used the 1925-LCP plates.

1925-GGH has these characteristics that help identify it:

chapter 5: the spelling of the author's name Thompson is corrected to Thomson
chapter 2: wondering afar, star-led is changed to wandering afar, star-led (matches MS)
chapter 2: yellowish grey wincey is changed to yellowish white wincey
chapter 16: beginning to work is changed to beginning to go (matches MS)

The Provenance of Project Gutenberg's 2016 Transcription

The Project Gutenberg 2016 transcription doesn't state its copy-text. Using the above, it seems like it may be a mongrel text, derived from more than one source (modernized, Americanized, and extensively edited), based on the following contradictory observations:

chapter 16: face downward on the sofa in an agony (so: LCP)
chapter 1: Home boy (so: 1925-LCP)
chapter 1: Hopeton (so: 1925-LCP)
chapter 17: commune (so: 1925-LCP)
chapter 5: Thompson (so: not 1925-GGH)
chapter 2: yellowish grey (so: not 1925-GGH)
chapter 19: ecstasy (so: not 1925-LCP)
chapter 14: beatification (so: not 1925-LCP)

Issues In Specific Editions/Transcriptions

I found most, but not all, of these issues from doing a diff between two branches in git. (I have not proof-read these other sources. I have only proof-read the 1908-LCP-4th text.) As you can see, many transcription errors are detected by doing a simple diff.

I haven't included the (2016) Project Gutenberg transcription here, because the number of issues for them is too large!

1946 Ryerson (7+3) - found using diffs + DPC notes about misspellings

This edition is based on the 1925-LCP plates (see 2007-NCE).

Ch	Paragraph	Is	Should Be	Description
1	Marilla was a tall	hairpins stuck agressively	hairpins stuck aggressively	misspelled
14	That night a thoroughly	beautification	beatification	wrong word; compare LCP 1908, 4th impr.
17	The girls were not	already to take a bite	all ready to take a bite	should be 'all ready'; see LCP 1908, 4th impr, and the MS.
17	The girls were not	red hot coal	red-hot coal	should be 'red-hot'; see LCP 1908, 4th impr, and the Cdn Oxford Dictionary.
17	The girls were not	big lucious “strawberry apple.”	big luscious “strawberry apple.”	misspelled
19	For Anne the real	positive ecstacy	positive ecstasy	misspelled; should be 'ecstasy'; see LCP 1908, 4th impr, and the Cdn Oxford Dictionary
19	“I knew it!”	The Barry’s must feel	The Barrys must feel	see LCP 1908, 4th impr
19	“Yes,” answered Diana	dancing with rage. Anne.	dancing with rage, Anne.	misprint; period should be a comma. see LCP 1908, 4th impr
32	“I just guess she	we’ll all proud of you.	we’re all proud of you.	misspelled
35	Ruby Gillis was the handsomest	preeminence	pre-eminence	match the MS, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary

2007 Norton (9) - found in passing; all involve hyphens

Ch	Paragraph	Is	Should Be	Description
02	They had driven	tiptoe-ing	tiptoeing	the hyphen is present in 1908, but only because of a line-break; occurrences
04	Anne washed the dishes	dinner-time	dinnertime	the hyphen is present in 1908, but only because of a line-break; MS: 'dinnertime' (twice), which agrees w/ Cdn Oxford Dict.; chapt. 15: 'dinner time'
08	Anne set the card	dinner-table	dinner table	the hyphen is present in 1908, but only because of a line-break; MS and Chapter 20 have 'dinner table'; occurrences
08	Anne blew a couple	fingertips	finger-tips	ambiguity because of a line break; MS has hyphen, but Cdn Oxford dict doesn't; occurrences
17	The girls	redhot coal	red-hot coal	use a hyphen; occurrences
20	One June evening	be-starred	bestarred	the hyphen is present in 1908, but only because of a line-break; occurrences; MS agrees with the Collins dict.
21	“I don’t think I was	black-board	blackboard	the hyphen is present in 1908, but only because of a line-break; occurrences
30	Studies palled just	by-ways	byways	in 1908 the hyphen coincides with a line-break; occurrences; The MS is inconsistent.
35	Ruby Gillis was the handsomest	preeminence	pre-eminence	in 1908 the hyphen coincides with a line-break; match the MS, and the Cdn Oxford Dict; occurrences

Distributed Proofreaders Canada (33) - found using diffs

Ch	Paragraph	Is	Should Be	Description	Fixed
01	There are plenty	Gulf of St Lawrence	Gulf of St. Lawrence	the period for the abbreviation 'St.'	y
03	“Oh, it makes	an e I shall	an _e_ I shall	missing the italics	y
04	“I never in all	_looks_?	_looks?_	include the question mark	N
05	“Do you know,” said	Redheaded	Red-headed	the line break is misleading	y
08	“There—I know this prayer	sound so luxurious	sound _so_ luxurious	the emphasis is missing	y
08	“There—I know this prayer	make _that_, seem	make _that_ seem	extra comma	y
08	Anne blew a couple	fingertips	finger-tips	the line break is misleading; the MS has a hyphen, but the modern Cdn Oxford Dict. doesn't	y
10	"Oh, Mrs. Lynde!"	to her feet "You	to her feet. "You	missing period; OCR confused	y
10	“How can I be vain	took	look	OCR is confused by a printing defect	y
11	Anne was standing	preceeding	preceding	not spelled correctly in the copy-text (they like to correct such errors directly)	y
13	“Oh, Marilla	ice cream	ice-cream	the hyphenation is inconsistent in the copy-text; it's usually ice-cream	y
13	“Oh, Marilla	_ice cream_!	_ice-cream!_	include the exclamation point in the italics	y
15	The way Anne and Diana	was a pretty one	was a pretty one	add italics	y
15	“I think your Gilbert	Gilbert Blythe is handsome	Gilbert Blythe is handsome	add italics	y
16	“I should think	ran to the pantry,	ran to the pantry.	comma should be a period; the copy-text has a printing error here	y
17	The Cæsar’s pageant	The Caesar’s pageant	The Cæsar’s pageant	use a ligature æ (as elsewhere)	N
18	“Well, anyway,	The taffy wasn’t very good.	The taffy wasn’t very good,	period should be a comma	y
20	“I’m so sorry for people	not to miss them	not to miss them	missing italics for not	y
21	“I don’t think I was	spelled my name without an e	spelled my name without an e	missing italics for e	y
24	“Well, when you can combine	Faith, Hope, and Charity,	Faith, Hope, and Charity.	comma should be a period	y
23	“And that is just why	it is all my own fault	it is all my own fault	missing italics for is	y
25	“Merry Christmas, Marilla!	They’re not green	They’re not green	missing italics for not	y
26	“Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing	noticed that	noticed that.	missing period	y
27	“Anne Shirley, what have	Why, it’s _green_!	Why, it’s _green!_	include the exclamation point in the italics	N
29	“I’m not going to think about it	But it is such	But it _is_ such	add italics for 'is'	y
30	“Oh, how can you call	but it was agonising	but it was _agonizing_	not the same spelling as the copy-text	y
30	“I’m not even going to	until I know every proposition	until I know every proposition	remove the italics on 'I'	y
30	“Matthew had a bad spell	avoid excitement That’s	avoid excitement. That’s	missing period	y
31	“I don’t know—I don’t want	fore-finger	forefinger	the hyphen is from the line break; the MS has no hyphen, and neither has the Cdn Oxford Dict.	y
33	“She looks neat	to Matthew, nowadays.	to Matthew nowadays.	remove the comma	y
36	For a moment Anne	Matthew would be sorry,—he	Matthew would be sorry—he	remove the comma; seems to be a defect in the printing	y
37	“We’ve got each other	“We’ve got each other. Anne.	“We’ve got each other, Anne.	period should be a comma	y
38	But crispness was no	Thomas that night.	Thomas that night,	period should be a comma	y

Wikisource (113) - found using diffs

Fixes have been applied to all items except one.

The items marked as y¹ involve whitespace of some kind. Common causes:

unneeded wikisource comments or directives can introduce whitespace.
blank pages that aren't skipped. That's implemented at the chapter level, by editing the <pages> tag to exclude the blank pages.
when a hyphenated word spans two pages, then the apostrophe must be inside {{hwe}}.
the export was injecting zero-width space ZWSP unicode characters into the text export. That issue was kindly fixed by wikisource.
some paragraphs were not being treated as new paragraphs. A workaround is to put {{nop}} in the line which immediately precedes the paragraph.

Items marked as y² were corrected during a second cycle of corrections.

Items marked as exp have an issue with the text export.

Ch	Paragraph	Is	Should Be	Description	Fixed
01	“Well, we’re not	I’d never dream	“I’d never dream	missing opening quotation mark	y
01	“Well, we’re not	It does really	“It does really	missing opening quotation mark	y
01	“Well, we’re not	so he’s he ever	so be’s he ever	possible OCR error	y
02	He walked jauntily	gently own the	gently down the	missing the letter 'd'	y
02	The “Avenue,”	the air as full	the air was full	missing the letter 'w'	y
03	“Oh, I’m not ashamed	Anne spelled with an _e_	Anne spelled with an _e_.	missing period	y
03	“I could hire	and she'd be company	“and she’d be company	missing first quotation mark	y
04	Anne washed the	dinner-time	dinnertime	the hyphen is present only because of a line-break; MS: 'dinnertime' (twice), which agrees w/ Cdn Oxford Dict.; chapt. 15: 'dinner time'	No.
06	“I’m dreadful sorry,”	Nancy is terrible	Nancy is a terrible	missing the word 'a'	y
06	“And if there	Take the armchair. Miss Cuthbert.	Take the armchair, Miss Cuthbert.	period should be a comma	y
06	“I think you’d better	said Marilla crossly,	said Marilla crossly.	comma should be a period	y
07	“Why, Anne, what	God is, Anne?	God is, Anne?”	missing close quote	y
07	“Oh, at the asylum	eternal and unchangeable,	eternal and unchangeable.	comma should be a period	y
08	Can I take the	Can I take the	“Can I take the	missing opening quote	y
09	Anne had been a	Mrs, Lynde	Mrs. Lynde	comma should be a period	y
09	Anne came running	Anne came running	Anne came running	should begin a new pargraph	y²
10	“You shouldn’t think	vain little girl,	vain little girl.	comma should be a period	y
11	But he wasn’t	But he wasn’t	“But he wasn’t	missing opening quote	y
12	Mrs. Barry,	Mrs, Barry,	Mrs. Barry,	comma should be a period	y
12	“Well, I don’t mind	How do you do it	“How do you do it	missing opening quote	y
13	“I do _not_ like	diamonds with a sigh,	diamonds with a sigh.	comma should be a period	y
13	“Anne, you have talked	Now, just for	“Now, just for	missing opening quote	y
14	“I took the amethyst	before you came home,	before you came home.	comma should be period	y
14	That was a dismal	raked the yard.	raked the yard. (with new paragraph)	'raked the yard.' ends the paragraph	y
14	“Anne Shirley,” said	I’ve just found	I’ve just found	there's an extra space betwixt 'just' and 'found'	y¹
14	“Anne, you do beat	start square again..	start square again.	there's an extra period that should be removed. Possible OCR error.	y
15	Lover’s Lane opened out	hauled home in winter,	hauled home in winter.	comma should be a period	y
15	When Mr. Phillips was	whispered to Anne.	whispered to Anne,	period should be a comma	y
15	Mr. Phillips stalked down	Mr. Phillips stalked down	Mr. Phillips stalked down	should be in a new paragraph	y¹
15	“She’ll have to	I’ll never go to school	“I’ll never go to school	missing opening quote	y
16	The next day was	flung herself face down- ward	flung herself face downward	has extra space; the hyphen is from a line break, not a hyphenated word	y
16	“Messy things,”	You clutter up	“You clutter up	missing opening quote	y
17	“No.”	Anne drew a long breath,	Anne drew a long breath.	comma should be a period	y
17	“And I will always	we read together says,	we read together says.	comma should be a period	y
18	All things great	All thing’s great	All things great	remove apostrophe	y
18	“I was awfully near	explained Anne,	explained Anne.	comma should be a period	y
19	For Anne the real	room up-stairs,	room up-stairs.	comma should be a period; may be caused by poor image quality	y
19	“Well now, Marilla	let Anne go.	let Anne go.”	missing quote	y
19	“Hasn’t it been a	It must be splendid	“It must be splendid	missing quote	y
19	“I’m afraid my imagination	I dare say your	“I dare say your	missing quote	y
20	“Somehow,” she told Diana	whether Gil— whether	whether Gil—whether	extra space beside em dash	y
20	“I’ll have to go	“I’lll have to go	“I’ll have to go	misspelled, should be 'I’ll'	y
21	“I don’t think I was	one after the other,	one after the other.	comma should be a period	y
21	Nobody else asked	Nobody else asked	“Nobody else asked	missing quote	y
21	“Mrs. Barry had her	and the minister paid	“and the minister paid	missing quote	y
21	“Well, do as you like	Only mind you leave	“Only mind you leave	missing quote	y
21	“Suppose you jump up	Suppose you jump up	“Suppose you jump up	missing quote	y
21	“My dear little girl	My dear little girl	“My dear little girl	missing quote	y
23	If Anne had tumbled	If Anne had tumbled	If Anne had tumbled	missing new paragraph	y¹
23	Don’t be very frightened	bright side of things.	bright side of things.”	missing end quote	y²
25	“I don’t see how I’m	on that dress, I’m	on that dress. I’m	comma should be a period	y
25	“Everything went off very well	“ I guess we	“I guess we	remove extra space before 'I'.	y
25	When Miss Harris returned	hands and replied: Well now	hands and replied: “Well now	missing quotation mark	y
25	“We only keep hayseed	We only keep hayseed	“We only keep hayseed	missing quotation mark	y
25	Miss Harris had heard	We’ve none on hand	“We’ve none on hand	missing quotation mark	y
25	“Merry Christmas, Marilla!	Merry Christmas, Marilla!	“Merry Christmas, Marilla!	missing quotation mark	y
25	“That’s a Christmas present	Why—why—Anne, don’t you	“Why—why—Anne, don’t you	missing quotation mark	y
26	“In four more years	that’s ridiculous, I shall	that’s ridiculous. I shall	comma should be a period	y
26	“They grew in beauty	I wall save thee	I will save thee	'wall' should be 'will'	y
26	“But we’re so careful	But we’re so careful	“But we’re so careful	missing quotation mark	y
26	“If I had Alice	If I had Alice	“If I had Alice	missing quotation mark	y
27	“She’s not here when	“ I reckon she’ll	“I reckon she’ll	remove extra space after quote	y
27	“Well, I hope you’ll repent	led you, Anne, Goodness knows	led you, Anne. Goodness knows	comma should be a period	y
27	“I didn’t say anything	“ because I thought it	“because I thought it	remove extra space after quote	y¹
28	“Oh, do you really think so	“ I’ve sometimes thought	“I’ve sometimes thought	remove extra space	y
28	“Ruby, you shouldn’t talk	“ It spoils the effect	“It spoils the effect	remove extra space	y
28	Jane rose to the occasion	crepe	crêpe	missing accent	exp
28	“Now, she’s all ready	* Farewell, sweet sister	“Farewell, sweet sister	bad quote character, and extra space	y
28	The flat drifted	disappear before their very eyes	disappear before their very eyes	remove two extra spaces between 'disappear' and 'before'	y¹
28	The minutes passed by	The minutes passed by	The minutes passed by	needs a new paragraph	y¹
28	For a moment Anne	called her “ carrots ” and	called her “carrots” and	remove extra spaces around 'carrots'	y¹
28	Half-way up the path	Mrs. Barry being away,	Mrs. Barry being away.	comma should be a period	y
28	“Oh, Anne,” gasped Diana	drowned — and we	drowned—and we	remove extra space surrounding the em dash	y¹
28	“Oh, yes, I think I will	“ I think my prospects	“I think my prospects	remove extra space	y¹
28	“Well,” explained Anne	“ I’ve learned a new and valuable	“I’ve learned a new and valuable	remove extra space	y¹
28	“Well,” explained Anne	And today’s mistake	And to-day’s mistake	add hyphen	y²
28	But Matthew, who had been	But Matthew, who had been sitting	But Matthew, who had been sitting	needs a new paragraph	y
28	“Oh, Anne,” gasped Diana	Oh, Anne—we thought—you were	“Oh, Anne—we thought—you were	missing quote	y
28	“We were playing Elaine	and I had to drift	“and I had to drift	missing quote	y
29	Anne was bringing the cows	in the firtrees at evening	in the fir-trees at evening	missing hyphen	y
29	“Indeed, I didn’t	you think there is. Miss Barry	you think there is, Miss Barry	period should be a comma	y
29	Miss Barry’s house	as Anne told Marilia afterwards	as Anne told Marilla afterwards	misspelled name	y
29	“Velvet carpet	“ _and_ silk curtains!	“_and_ silk curtains!	remove extra space	y¹
29	“Well, I hope	I hope you’e enjoyed	I hope you’ve enjoyed	misspelled	y
29	“It’s a very fine	It’s a very fine evening	“It’s a very fine evening	missing opening quote	y
29	“So you’ve come to	Mercy, child, how you	“Mercy, child, how you	missing opening quote	y
29	“Isn’t it just like	I never was in Aunt	“I never was in Aunt	missing opening quote	y
29	“I should think not	Diana indignantly	Diana indignantly.	missing period; remove new para	y²
30	“Well, seeing you’re so	Well, seeing you’re so	“Well, seeing you’re so	missing opening quote	y
30	“I must say Anne has	“She must be a great	“She must be a great	missing opening quote	y
30	“Oh, Marilla, thank	“Oh, Marilla, thank you,” Anne	“Oh, Marilla, thank you.” Anne	comma should be a period	y
30	“But oh, Marilla, I really	college for education’s sake, because, she	college for education’s sake, because she	remove comma after 'because'	y
30	“I never would have thought	short of wonderful how, she’s improved	short of wonderful how she’s improved	remove comma after 'how'	y
32	“Yours devotedly,	Yours devotedly,	Yours devotedly,	replace the unusual unicode character, U+002C decimal separator, with a standard comma	y
33	When the concert was over	decorated dining-room: Diana	decorated dining-room; Diana	change colon to a semi-colon	y
33	“Not a bit of it	It's a perfect night, and	"It's a perfect night, and Diana	missing quote	y
33	“The lady who keeps it	The lady who keeps it	"The lady who keeps it	missing quote	y
33	“I won’t cry	I won’t cry	"I won’t cry	missing quote	y
33	“You’ve been crying	for your rose and eyes get red	for your nose and eyes get red	change 'rose' to nose' (the printing is defective here)	y
33	“I’ll win that scholarship	if got to be a B.A.?	if I got to be a B.A.?	add 'I'	y
35	“That Anne-girl	improves all the time," she said	improves all the time," she said.	add period after 'said'	y
35	“That Anne-girl	trouble making myself love them.	trouble in making myself love them.	add 'in'	y
35	“That may make me	heads up, in Lovers’ Lane	heads up in Lovers’ Lane	remove the comma	y
36	Anne laughed and pelted	the faded “June lilies_”	the faded “June lilies”	remove the extra space	y¹
36	“I think he has only been	at the head of the institution”	at the head of the institution.”	add missing period	y
36	“Well now, I can’t seem to	“It’s only that I’m getting old	“It’s only that I’m getting old	doesn't start a new paragraph	y
37	“I was down to the graveyard	graveyard to plant a rosebush	graveyard to plant a rose-bush	spell with a hyphen, as spelled a few lines down	y
37	“I shall be all right	the cake with liniment”	the cake with liniment.”	add missing period	y
38	“I don’t call it much hope	“What am I to live for	“What am I to live for	remove new line beforehand; does not start a new paragraph	y
38	“But I’m going to study Latin	lifted her hands in holy horror,	lifted her hands in holy horror.	comma should be a period	y
38	“Diana is signalling for	for me to go over”	for me to go over,”	comma needed after 'over'	y
38	Anne sat long at her window	firs in the__hollow	firs in the_hollow	remove extra space after 'the'	y¹
38	Anne’s horizons had closed	Anne’s horizons had closed	Anne’s horizons had closed	needs to start a new paragraph	y¹

Example of Long Term Error Propagation

Errors can persist for a long time. They can also reappear. As an example, take the error in the last chapter (listed above):

Date	Publisher	Appears As	OK?
1908	MS, the original manuscript	comma	ok
1908-09	L. C. Page, 4th impression	period	err
1909-08	L. C. Page, 11th impression	period	err
1915-02	Grosset and Dunlap, 39th impression	period	err
1930-10	George G. Harrap	period	err
1933	Angus & Robertson	period	err
1946-11	Ryerson Press (uses 1925-LCP plates)	comma	ok
1988	Harrap	period	err
1996	Random House/Seal	period	err
1997	Oxford University Press (critical edition)	comma	ok
1999	HarperCollins	period	err
2007	Norton Critical Edition (likely uncorrected intentionally)	period	err
2008	Penguin/Puffin	period	err
2008	New Canadian Library/M&S	comma	ok
2017	Penguin Classics (critical edition)¹	period	err
2017	Pan Macmillan	period	err
2019	Arcturus	period	err

1: A Note on the Text states that a correction is applied, but in the body of the text it is not.

Errors By Edition

These tables track only the issues listed above, in the 1908 Page edition.

Early editions, and transcriptions

What the IDs mean (transcriptions end with 'T' or 'Tc'):

Id	Type	Description	Source	Link
1st	Book	1908-LCP 1st impression	kindredspaces.ca	link
4th	Book	1908-LCP 4th impression	archive.org	link
4thT	Transcription	1908-LCP 4th impression	Branch: 1908-LCP 4th	link
4thTc	Transcription	1908-LCP 4th impression, corrected	Branch: 1908-LCP-4th-corrected	link
11th	Book	1908-LCP 11th impression	archive.org	link
11thT	Transcription	1908-LCP 11th impression, live data!	wikisource.org	link
46	Book	1946-RP Ryerson Press	archive.org	link
46T	Transcription	1946-RP Ryerson Press, 2008-05-09 version.	fadedpage.com	link
GUT	Transcription	Copy-text(s) unknown, 2016-10-06 version	gutenberg.org	link

X - the issue is present (usually an error, but some issues are debatable)
O - the issue is absent (OK)
[blank] - inapplicable

Issue	1st	4th	4thT	4thTc	11th	11thT	46	46T	GUT	Description
iss-08P-01	X	X			X	X	O	O	O	Rachael, TOC
iss-08P-02	X	X	X	O	X¹	0	O	O	O	"Rachel Lynde’s husband
iss-08P-03	X	X	X	O	X	X	O²	O²	O²	Barnado
iss-08P-04	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	Hopeton [1st]
	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	Hopeton [2nd]
iss-08P-05	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	wondering afar
iss-08P-06	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	Thompson
iss-08P-07	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	eternal and unchangeable,
iss-08P-08	X	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	anl then studied diligently
iss-08P-09	O	X	X	O	O	O	O	O	O	echo lived there
iss-08P-10	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	cooky to eat with it along
iss-08P-11	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	about its being all right
iss-08P-12	X	X	X	O	X	X	O	O	O	to forget, said Anne
iss-08P-13	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	awhile [1st]
	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	awhile [2nd]
	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	awhile [3rd]
	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	awhile [4th]
	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	awhile [5th]
iss-08P-14	X	X	X	O	O	O	O	O	O	resent the license
iss-08P-15	X	X	X	O	X	X	O	O	O³	it is much as he did
iss-08P-16	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X⁴	Let you and I have
iss-08P-17	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	in Death Not Divided
iss-08P-18	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	Hills peeped o’er hill
iss-08P-19	X	X	X	O	X	X	O	O	O	stayed resolutely away
iss-08P-20	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	yellowish-brown wincey
iss-08P-21	X	X	X	O	X	X⁵	X	X	X	Josiah Allen’s wife
iss-08P-22	X	X	X	O	X	X	O	X	X	Thomas that night.

They attempted to correct, but made a mistake. There are two opening quotes.
Changed Barnado boy to Home boy.
They change is to was.
They change I to me.
Links to an explanatory wikipedia page.

Modern editions

What the IDs mean:

Id	Description	Link	UK/US sp.	Modernized?	Comment
NCE	2007 Norton	link	flavour	to-day	Critical edition. Close to 1908-LCP.
PCD	2017 Penguin Classics Deluxe	link	flavour	to-day	Critical edition. Close to 1908-LCP.
OUP	1997 Oxford University Press	link	flavour	to-day	Critical edition. Not as close to 1908-LCP.
HCO	1999 HarperCollins/HarperFestival	photo	flavor	today	Close to RHS. Seems based on 1908.
RHS	1996 Random House/Seal	photo	flavor	today	Close to HCO. Seems based on 1908.
PPF	2008 Penguin/Puffin	photo	flavour	today	Seems close to 1927-GGH.
NCL	2008 New Canadian Library/M&S	photo	flavour	to-day	Close to 1908-LCP.
WDE	2008 Wordsworth Editions	link	flavour	today	Not close to 1908-LCP.
ARC	2019 Arcturus Publishing	photo	flavour	today	Seems to match WDE.
HAR	1988 Harrap Limited	photo	flavour	to-day	Reset in 1943. Seems close to 1927-GGH.

X - the issue is present (usually an error, but some issues are debatable)
O - the issue is absent (OK)

Issue	NCE	PCD	OUP	HCO	RHS	PPF	NCL	WDE	ARC	HAR	Description
iss-08P-01	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	Rachael, TOC
iss-08P-02	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	"Rachel Lynde’s husband
iss-08P-03	O	O	O	X	X	O¹	O	O	O	O¹	Barnado
iss-08P-04	O	X	O	X	X	O	X	O	O	O	Hopeton [1st]
	O	X	O	X	X	X	X	O	O	X	Hopeton [2nd]
iss-08P-05	O	X	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	O	wondering afar
iss-08P-06	O	X	O	X	X	O	X	X	X	O	Thompson
iss-08P-07	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X⁵	eternal and unchangeable,
iss-08P-08	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	anl then studied diligently
iss-08P-09	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	echo lived there
iss-08P-10	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	cooky to eat with it along
iss-08P-11	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	O	O	X	about its being all right
iss-08P-12	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	to forget, said Anne
iss-08P-13	X	X	X	X	X	O	X	O	O	O	awhile [1st]
	X	X	X	X	X	O	X	O	O	O	awhile [2nd]
	X	X	X	X	X	O	X	O	O	O	awhile [3rd]
	X	X	X	X	X	O	X	O	O	O	awhile [4th]
	X	X	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	O	awhile [5th]
iss-08P-14	O	O	O	O	O	O	X	O	O	O	resent the license
iss-08P-15	O	O	O	O	O	O	X	O³	O³	O	it is much as he did
iss-08P-16	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X⁴	X⁴	X	Let you and I have
iss-08P-17	X	X	O	X	X	O	X	O	O	O	in Death Not Divided
iss-08P-18	O	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	Hills peeped o’er hill
iss-08P-19	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	stayed resolutely away
iss-08P-20	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	yellowish-brown wincey
iss-08P-21	X	X	O	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	Josiah Allen’s wife
iss-08P-22	X	X²	O	X	X	X	O	X	X	X	Thomas that night.

1: Changed Barnado boy to “Home” boy (with quotes). That points to 1927-GGH, according to 2007-NCE.
2: the A Note on the Text states that a correction is applied, but in the body of the text it is not.
3: changes the tense: it was as much as he did
4: changed to: Let you and me
5: the only change is an additional comma after eternal

UTF-8 Encoding Everywhere

All text files in this project use the UTF-8 encoding. If you see odd characters on your screen, check that your tools are using the UTF-8 encoding.

Character Issues

Not all dashes are equal:

Unicode	Name	Example	Keystrokes (Windows)	Description
U+2014	Em Dash	—	Alt+0151	Used to separate parts of a sentence—when needed. Common.
U+2013	En Dash	–	Alt+0150	Smaller than Em Dash. Rare.
U+2015	Horizontal bar	—		Used in French to introduce speech. Rare in English.
U+2010	Hyphen	‐		Hyphenated words.
U+002D	Hyphen-Minus	-		Minus sign on the numeric keypad.

Quotes, apostrophes, and ellipsis:

Unicode	Name	Example	Description
U+201C	Left Double Quotation Mark	“	Open quote.
U+201D	Right Double Quotation Mark	”	Close quote.
U+2018	Left Single Quotation Mark	‘	Open quote.
U+2019	Right Single Quotation Mark	’	Close quote.
U+0027	Vertical Apostrophe	'	Undesirable; use the Right Single Quotation Mark instead: Tom’s.
U+2026	Ellipsis	…	Single chararcter, not three!

You can investigate specific characters here.

Standardized Line Breaks

The git tool compares files line by line, and character by character. It has no knowledge of what a sentence is.

It can easily compare text that has the same line breaks, say

At first Matthew suggested getting a Barnardo boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that.

versus the slightly different text:

At first Matthew suggested getting a Barnado boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that.

But it can't effectively compare text that has different line breaks:

At first Matthew suggested getting a Barnardo boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that.

versus:

At first Matthew suggested getting a Barnardo boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that.

With such text, git will find a huge number of trivial differences just because of the line breaks.

With two independent sources of a text, it's extremely likely that the line-breaks will differ. The work-around is to enforce a simple policy: each line is a complete sentence.

Standardized Format

The transcriptions in this project have the following format:

one sentence per line (as described above)
a new paragraph is represented by a single empty line
italics are represented by underscores: _like this_ stands for like this
there's no representation of bold text
quotations use left-quote and right-quote “”, not vertical quote ": “Hello there,” said...
apostrophes use ’, not ': I’ll
indentation is never used
chapter titles at the start of a file are in all-caps
em dash is used (not hyphen)
small caps are not represented
the files are encoded in UTF-8, so that any glyph can be represented

Toolkit

In this project I used these tools:

the Eclipse editor
git-bash for running git commands
two repositories on github.com (one for transcriptions, one for documentation)
this tool was occasionally used to show the Unicode designation of unusual characters

Here's a screen shot of Eclipse being used to proof-read text versus a scanned version of the book on archive.org. Note how it is wrapping the long sentences in the window, and showing special symbols for spaces and line breaks. It helps to have a wide screen; larger text reduces eye strain.

Here's a screen shot of Eclipse showing the diff for Chapter 10 of the novel. The diff shows the differences between this project's text (left) and that of Distributed Proofreaders Canada (right). It shows the same file, but from two different branches in git. You can see that the word look is mistakenly transcribed by DPC as took. If you look at the image of the page, it seems likely that this error occurred during the original OCR scan of the book. Indeed, you can see that archive.org's scanner is making the exact same error, mistaking look for took. This is a good demonstration of how effective it is to compare one transcription to another: it lets us find each others errors (but not all of them).

Text Editor Recommendations

For this project, here's a list of recommendations for your text editor:

it should have menu actions for saving changes to the git repository (it should know about git)
it must use UTF-8 encoding (check the settings)
it must not have an auto-correction tool
it can apply line-wrap without hyphenating text on the right margin
it can apply line-wrap to text without saving temporary line breaks to the underlying file
it should be able to indicate invisible characters (spaces and line breaks)
it should be able to show the diff between versions of a file
it would be nice if it could show the Unicode designation of a character, for example U+0074 : LATIN SMALL LETTER T; if not, you can use this tool