The same text is available here as ASCII text, which might be easier to work with for some purposes. (Right-click link to download.)
Argon "Corrections"
These corrections to the text were produced by me, Roger MacBride Allen, in February 2011. I did NOT proofread this monstrosity. Rather, I spotted the errors reported below in the process of preparing The Somewhat Official Competitive Reading Edition of The Eye of Argon, which is basically as close as I could come to producing an exact typographic duplicate of the original text. THE SOCRE Argon is available for free at www.foxacre.com/argon.
I worked from the scans of the original text at Dave Langfords's Ansible, said scans to be found at a quick link from http://ansible.co.uk/misc/eyeargon-intro.html. (Warning -- the PDF containing the scans is a pretty hefty-sized file.) I compared the scans against a copy of the text that I found at Susan Stepney's web page: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/sf/eyeargon/index.htm, which I found out a trifle too late is slightly variant from the text found at Ansible.
As a lot of what I did was to make sure the lines of the SOCRE edition ended with the same word or character as on the original, I likely found more errors toward the right side of the page as oppposed to the left. It should also be noted that it is entirely possible that different words or characters are visible or invisible on different copies of the original text. If you spot more errors, drop me a line at argon [at] foxacre dot com.
I found a lot of doubled spaces, or instances where the spaces were missing in the original, but included in the digital text. As spotting blank spaces is a good way to go blind, you might want to do a search-and replace, substituting the caret ^ (the little doodad over the 6 on most keyboards) for spaces.
Some of the corrrections below are beyond the abilities of mere ASCII text, such as setting a letter a half-line above the text to simulate a flying-cap from the old manual typewriter days, or inserting a single-character 1/2 symbol for Chapter 3 1/2. They are noted here for those who can make use of them.
Maddeningly, Adobe Dreamweaver "corrected" my corrections in the cases where I inserted superfluous spaces to reflect the original text. I have substituted two carets [^^] for doubled spaces in order to outfox the software. Doubtless there is some way to turn off such auto-corrrections, (yep, just found it) but this works just as well -- and might be visually clearer. Please forgive the visual double-entendre produced by using carets instead of spaces in the case of the yearning chest. Honest, I didn't mean it that way.
Herewith, the corrections:
Page 27, paragraph 6 of text, omit space after comma in phrase Damn you, barbarian" to read
Damn you,barbarian
Page 27, last paragraph, insert superfluous space between "Reining" and "his"
Page 28, 8th graph, insert extra space between words "yearning chest" to read
yearning^^chest
9th graph, delete space in passage
"You make love well wench," Admitted Grignr
to read
"You make love well wench,"Admitted Grignr
Page 28, likewise in 9th graph. Insert " p" at end of line. Yes, gentle reader, after all these years, careful scholarship reveals that the True Reading of this paragraph reads, in full, as follows:
"You make love well wench,"Admitted Grignr as he reached for the vessel of p
potent wine his charge had been quaffing.
That p is there, faint but clear, in the orignal. (Naturally, the background color of this particular page of the original is a sort of greenish yellow.)
Page 29, forth paragraph (3rd graph after chap break), near end of line: replace "naked" with "na ed".
Page 29, fifth paragraph (4th graph after chape break) insert superfluous space between quotation mark and work "Thou" to read
" Thou hast need
Page 29, sixth paragraph, replace "open" with "o en"
Page 29, 7th graph, insert superfluous space between words "of his" to read
of^^his
Page 39, first graph, last line, first word. insert superfluous space before "superior" to read
superior
3rd graph, insert superfluous space between "you" and trailing comma to reader
you ,
8th graph, insert extra space between "Stated" and "one" to read
Stated^^one
11th graph. Third line: if possible, raise H in "He was of no" half line above text. One line down, insert extra space between "to" and "necessitate" to read
to^^necessitate
Page 30. Remarkably, there are two errors in the transcription that do NOT appear in the original.
Paragraph 3, last line -- replace "chuncky" with "chunky"
Paragraph 5, replace "wisdon" with "wisdom"
Page 32, 3rd graph. Third line, extra space between "over" and "his"
over^^his
Same graph, last line, extra space between "reind and "supreme."
reind^^supreme.
Paragraph 4. If possible, set comma after ellipsis directly under quotation mark.
Sixth paragraph, 2nd line, extra space between "to" and "filter"
to^^filter
Page 32, break for 7 1/2. Omit space between numbers and use typeset symbol for 1/2 to read
71/2 (typeset character, not available in ASCII, used for these notes)
Page 34, paragraph 1, line 6 in original, insert space before comma at end of line,
to read
ten hours ,
Insert extra space between "pit." and "Hence,"
pit.^^Hence,
Page 34 paragraph 4 line 1.
Insert space between last two letters of word "exhaust" to read
exhaus t
last paragraph, 3rd and 4th lines. Comma after "sour" should start next line.
white teeth;its sour
, fetid breath
Page 37, second paragraph, line 4. If possible, set lowercase "y" in "yet" about halfway below the line of text.
Same page, third paragraph, second line delete space after comma after form to read
supple form,hands wrenching
Page 38, third paragraph, 2nd line. Insert about eight spaces between "and" and "swilveled" to approximate the scratched-out blank from the original ditto master.
and^^^^^^^^swilveled
Same paragraph. If possible, set the "T" in "The" about a half-line above line of text.
Same paragraph, two lines down, start of line. Insert about eight sapces to approximate another scratch-out.
^^^^^^^^swept to his gorge.
Page 39, 3rd paragraph, fourth line. Insert extra space between "he" and "had"
he^^had
Page 39 3rd paragraph, fourth line. Insert extra space between "infrequent" and "intervals"
infrequent^^intervals
Same paragraph. 6th line. Insert extra space between "to" and "discover"
to^^discover
Page 39, last paragraph, 3rd line. Again, an error that does not appear in the original. Replace
"forgotton" with "forgotten".
Page 39, last paragraph, last line, last word of original. Insert space before period to read
precariously held in .
Page 40-41, overall comment. The word "brain" appears on this page. In the original, it is actually "barain" with the r just a trifle to the left of the first a, but overlapping it almost completely. The word "tortured" appears, but is actually "tiortured" with the o completely and directly over the i. In the last paragraph on page 41, the word "side" is actually "sidee" with the d typed very slightly to the left of the first e, but fully overlapping it. In all these cases, the typist obviously intended to type the correct letter, AND ultimately did so, and therefore I have left them in the text that way. It's a judgment call. Likewise, there is a lot of scratched-out material above the sixth paragraph and below the seventh paragraph. However, it is impossible to determine what was typed here, and it was removed, if not completely, at least well enough so as not to interfere with reading the text. Therefore I have not attempted to replicate it in the SOCRE Argon.
Page 40, second paragraph, first line. Insert extra space between "into" and "the" at end of line.
into^^the
Page 41, paragraph 3, end of first line. Insert spacing and punctuation "^^ :_ _ _" to read
the glittering Ecordians^^ :_ _ _
Note: this needless "punctuation" is actually what was left behind after the word "nostrills" was typed in here and then scratched out, as the same word appeared at the start of the line below. If possible, type in the word "nostrills" in this position and then cover it over with white-out or digitally erase it in some way, being careful to leave behind the appropriate remnants of the word.
Page 41, paragraph 4 line two. Insert extra space before exclamation point.
depth below !
Page 41, paragraph 5, line 3. Insert extra space between "stretched" and "upon"
stretched upon
Page 42, top line. Omit space after third dash
helplessly - - -the victim
Page 42, paragraph 6. Insert extra space between "the" and "dull"
as he plucked the^^dull
Page 43 paragraph 6,^^delete space before word husked and at end of line, insert space before exclamation point. line should read
thirty-eight year,"husked the femme !
Page 43 paragraph 7, end of line. Insert space before exclamation point to read
disgusted tone !
Page 43, paragraph 8, end of paragraph. Insert space before comma. Line should read
but what is your calling" she queried , bustily?
Page 44, paragraph 4, insert superfluous space between "uttering" and "a" to read
uttering^^a
Page 44, break for 7 1/2. Omit space between numbers and use typeset symbol for 1/2 to read
71/2 (typeset character, not available in ASCII used for these notes)
Page 45, paragraph 5. Insert space between question mark and comma to read
"By what direction shall we pursue our flight? ,"
Page 45, paragraph 7, end of second line. Another error that does not appear in the original. Replace "wished" with "wishes" here. By expanding the image to 500% of its original size and retouching away everything that looked like an s, my best guess is that the typist first typed an a, then back-spaced and typed an s. This note made on about my fifth pass through the manuscript. I have given up marking extra spaces, as there are just too many of them for me. I need more power, cap'n!
Page 47, 2nd paragraph, 2nd line. Insert dropped word "very." Phrase should read
at this very moment sire
Page 48, 2nd paragraph, last line. Delete space after comma in last phrase. Phrase should read
"We shall do well with bauble,eh!"
Page 49 third paragraph, sixth line from top of graph. Uppercase first letter of sentence. Sentence should read
Leaving the Nobles, soldiers, and peasants to replace the missing monarch.
Page 49
Last line of text
Insert space and fourth exclamation point to end of story. Phrase should read
Long leave the king !!!!
Award credit line after end of story
Replace period with exclamation point & do not indent. Phrase should be flush left and read
winner of the Jay T. Rikosh award for excellence!