Orient Explorer Collection: The Silk Road Series

 

Another project I've been working on since returning from maternity leave is the Orient Explorer Collection: The Silk Road Series. This series is co-published with Guangxi Normal University Press, and it is the second such series we have released with them. (The first is about women writers in China.) 

This series is unlike anything I've edited at City University of Hong Kong Press thus far. The five books in it (listed below) are actually already in the public domain, so we reprinted the content using scanned images of the original books (provided by GNUP). Each book also includes a short preliminary section of new material, including an introductory foreword and brief author biography.

• Through Hidden Shensi (1902) by Francis H. Nichols 
• In Forbidden China: The D'Ollone Mission 1906–1909; China—Tibet—Mongolia (1912) by Vicomte d'Ollone 
• Across China on Foot: Life in the Interior and the Reform Movement (1911) by Edwin J. Dingle 
• Among the Celestials: A Narrative of Travels in Manchuria, Across the Gobi Desert, Through the Himalayas to India (1898) by Francis Younghusband 
• In the Footsteps of Marco Polo: Being the Account of a Journey Overland from Simla to Pekin (1907) by Clarence Dalrymple Bruce

Given that we didn't change any of the text from the original books, there wasn't much copy editing to be done on this project. I mainly needed to review the images inserted into the layout to make sure they were readable and well-positioned. I asked the designer to retouch any pages that were obviously marred (such as a few with handwritten comments or where the text was too faded), but it was impossible (and unnecessary) to make all the scans 100% perfect.

I enjoyed working on this project and learning more about adventurous travelers (unfortunately all male) in China, India and Central Asia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Perhaps some day if I have time I will read their accounts in detail.