What are you reading now?

[HighlandDougie]

Today, I shall be publishing my first novel on Amazon.

Which is a mightily impressive thing to do. Any chance of a link - or a PM if it seems immodest to do so publicly?

[Jonathan]

Today, I shall be publishing my first novel on Amazon.

[smittims]

Your post prompted me to dig out the BFI's 2-DVD set 'Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers'. Fascinating, and worth reflecting that until recently it would have been impossible for the ordinary viewer/consumer to see these films. This century has its compensations after all.

[pastoralguy]

Bryony Dixon. (BFI).

The Story of Victorian Film.

A fascinating study of the very earliest days of cinema.

[smittims]

Punctuation in the 19th century deserves a study, as it seems to have varied from what is considered correct today. I see a lot of colons where today semi-colons would be thought appropriate. I have read that punctuation in printed books was sometimes inserted by editors to conform with house style. Scott, for instance, wrote quickly using a dash for almost any punctuation mark, knowing that his publisher would change it.

This may account for an oddity I often see in 19th-century novels. Where today we should write either

He said that he didn't consider himself capable

or

He said 'I don't consider myself capable'

they say

He said 'that he didn't consider himself capable'.