The Life and Times of John Wilkes Booth

[L Verge]

Switching back to the new book by William Edwards on The Life and Times of John Wilkes Booth: I was a bit surprised when I opened it last night and found that it is not a "text" in the pure sense. He has chosen a chronological timeline of every possible movement and activity of JWB from the time of conception (lol)! To me, it is a less appealing version of Art Loux's exhaustive study John Wilkes Booth Day by Day. I may feel differently once I actually "digest" it. Bill does promise new insights, etc., so we'll see...

[Steve]

It would be interesting to compare Loux's book with this one.

[L Verge]

(07-24-2019 11:21 AM)Steve Wrote:  It would be interesting to compare Loux's book with this one.

Just in layout and presentation, Art's is more appealing -- and was done by a longtime publisher, McFarland & Co. We have dealt with McFarland for years and they can be hard to deal with and charge too much on wholesale, but there is quality there. I have been told that their original purpose in the publishing field was to supply library systems, so a cut above perhaps in quality?

[Steve]

(07-24-2019 03:51 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Just in layout and presentation, Art's is more appealing -- and was done by a longtime publisher, McFarland & Co. We have dealt with McFarland for years and they can be hard to deal with and charge too much on wholesale, but there is quality there. I have been told that their original purpose in the publishing field was to supply library systems, so a cut above perhaps in quality?

How is Edwards' layout and presentation different?

[L Verge]

(07-24-2019 05:15 PM)Steve Wrote:  

(07-24-2019 03:51 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Just in layout and presentation, Art's is more appealing -- and was done by a longtime publisher, McFarland & Co. We have dealt with McFarland for years and they can be hard to deal with and charge too much on wholesale, but there is quality there. I have been told that their original purpose in the publishing field was to supply library systems, so a cut above perhaps in quality?

How is Edwards' layout and presentation different?

I have not yet begun to read, so I am commenting only on the visual perception of the two books in respect to style. In another life, I worked for a graphic artist and his print company, so I still remember talks about making things pleasing to the eye from the front cover on. If I knew how to scan and post the covers, it would explain itself.

Art's cover is in full color; the photo of Booth is 3/4 shot of that seated one with him appearing to be glaring at someone to his right and that walking stick prominently displayed and those great ringlets of hair at his forehead; title in bold white with 2-inch letters; title of John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day clearly tells reader that it is a chronology style; and finally, the author's name in white on a simple green strip near the bottom completes the effect. The only other thing that is secondary to the eye is a shadowy background of a period calendar.

In comparison, Bill's cover is all black and white, really an enlarged version of the photo of him standing on a patterned carpet with his left hand holding the top of an upholstered side chair, the photo takes up most of the cover; the title of the book is about an inch high in the upper right quadrant, followed by "A Chronology of His Life and the Events Surrounding Him Including New Information and Insights" in quarter-inch letters (all letters are white and bordered in black); personally, I hate long subtitles; the largest letters on the cover are the author's name about an inch from the bottom.

Turning to the inside text, Art's work follows a standard two-column layout with dates and citations in bold followed by brief paragraphs of happenings. I think it is easier on the eyes. Bill's is full-page text with the use of lists and tabs and indents to cover the material. He does have pages of straight text lay-out in spots, and he does follow one of the rules that I learned from the graphic artist -- make sure you have lots of white space. I have also spotted some info and insights that he promises is new, so I better get busy reading instead of critiquing.

P.S. One thing - neither book's cover has any RED on it. Years ago, James Swanson told me to make sure that there was red because the eye is automatically drawn to it (his stepson agreed - especially for his books, where blood is a continuing theme). A friend who worked at Border's Books said the same thing about red because it displays better when putting out new books.

[L Verge]

(07-25-2019 12:47 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(07-24-2019 05:15 PM)Steve Wrote:  

(07-24-2019 03:51 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Just in layout and presentation, Art's is more appealing -- and was done by a longtime publisher, McFarland & Co. We have dealt with McFarland for years and they can be hard to deal with and charge too much on wholesale, but there is quality there. I have been told that their original purpose in the publishing field was to supply library systems, so a cut above perhaps in quality?

How is Edwards' layout and presentation different?

I have not yet begun to read, so I am commenting only on the visual perception of the two books in respect to style. In another life, I worked for a graphic artist and his print company, so I still remember talks about making things pleasing to the eye from the front cover on. If I knew how to scan and post the covers, it would explain itself.

Art's cover is in full color; the photo of Booth is 3/4 shot of that seated one with him appearing to be glaring at someone to his right and that walking stick prominently displayed and those great ringlets of hair at his forehead; title in bold white with 2-inch letters; title of John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day clearly tells reader that it is a chronology style; and finally, the author's name in white on a simple green strip near the bottom completes the effect. The only other thing that is secondary to the eye is a shadowy background of a period calendar.

In comparison, Bill's cover is all black and white, really an enlarged version of the photo of him standing on a patterned carpet with his left hand holding the top of an upholstered side chair, the photo takes up most of the cover; the title of the book is about an inch high in the upper right quadrant, followed by "A Chronology of His Life and the Events Surrounding Him Including New Information and Insights" in quarter-inch letters (all letters are white and bordered in black); personally, I hate long subtitles; the largest letters on the cover are the author's name about an inch from the bottom.

Turning to the inside text, Art's work follows a standard two-column layout with dates and citations in bold followed by brief paragraphs of happenings. I think it is easier on the eyes. Bill's is full-page text with the use of lists and tabs and indents to cover the material. He does have pages of straight text lay-out in spots, and he does follow one of the rules that I learned from the graphic artist -- make sure you have lots of white space. I have also spotted some info and insights that he promises is new, so I better get busy reading instead of critiquing.

P.S. One thing - neither book's cover has any RED on it. Years ago, James Swanson told me to make sure that there was red because the eye is automatically drawn to it (his stepson agreed - especially for his books, where blood is a continuing theme). A friend who worked at Border's Books said the same thing about red because it displays better when putting out new books.

Some folks have gotten busy reading, and the reports are not good. One more case of typos, simple errors, and no good proofreading before publication.

[wpbinzel]

Alas, as the one who started this thread, I am compelled to write this. I rely heavily on The Evidence by Bill Edwards and Ed Steers, as well as Edwards' transcription of the M619 (Lincoln assassination reward) files. Consequently, when I learned that Edwards was about to publish a new book on Booth, I looked forward to it with great anticipation. However, that anticipation has turned to disappointment. The Life and Times of John Wilkes Booth is very poorly edited, names are inconsistently spelled, and erroneous statements (such as "1828 -- John Quincy Adams continues as Vice President under Andrew Jackson." (p. 17)) are replete. It very much pains me to say this about someone who has contributed so much to the Lincoln assassination record, but I cannot recommend this book.

[Susan Higginbotham]

Sorry to hear this. It sounds as if the book, which I see is independently published, could have benefited from an editor. (The Amazon preview shows that on the "Other Works" page, the author's surname is misspelled. That's just painful.) Since it is independently published, the author's best course might be to withdraw it from publication, get it properly edited, and then relist it.

I am having similar difficulties with the Thomas Lincoln book, at least in the Kindle version. There's a lot of good information there, but it's obscured by the repetitive sentences and by the numerous typographical errors. An editor would have improved it vastly.

[RJNorton]

(07-29-2019 10:53 AM)wpbinzel Wrote:  but I cannot recommend this book.

(07-29-2019 11:20 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  the author's best course might be to withdraw it from publication, get it properly edited, and then relist it.

I agree with Bill and Susan. The author writes, "Since I started a similar chronology was published by Arthur F. Loux." I sort of wonder what Mr. Edwards' motivation was to carry on once Art's masterful effort was published.

[Steve]

(07-29-2019 10:53 AM)wpbinzel Wrote:  Alas, as the one who started this thread, I am compelled to write this. I rely heavily on The Evidence by Bill Edwards and Ed Steers, as well as Edwards' transcription of the M619 (Lincoln assassination reward) files. Consequently, when I learned that Edwards was about to publish a new book on Booth, I looked forward to it with great anticipation. However, that anticipation has turned to disappointment. The Life and Times of John Wilkes Booth is very poorly edited, names are inconsistently spelled, and erroneous statements (such as "1828 -- John Quincy Adams continues as Vice President under Andrew Jackson." (p. 17)) are replete. It very much pains me to say this about someone who has contributed so much to the Lincoln assassination record, but I cannot recommend this book.

I'm sorry to hear about this, though Laurie's first impressions seemed to warn about this possibility. There were a couple of things that I wanted to see compared to Loux's book.

[L Verge]

I don't know how long Bill Edwards has been working as a historian in the Lincoln assassination field. I believe that we first heard of him when he and Ed Steers produced that mammoth and expensive The Evidence book, which is a wonderful research tool. Mr. Edwards claims in this book to have found new insights and details to share. My routine skimming has not found them, but perhaps Bill Binzel's careful reading has.

Art Loux, a dear friend of many of us, spent nye on to 40 years working on John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day with the dedicated eye of a fine historian (albeit one of the "amateurs" that professionals used to look down on). When he died in 2013, he had a contract with McFarland, and his daughter, Jennifer, took over the reins of steering it through the final publication. IMO, Art's book is a professional tome from start to finish. If Bill Edwards thought that it would not get published, perhaps that spurred him to work on his rendition -- self-published and less expensive (and it shows).

My observation is that it is complicated (yes) to transcribe all those documents in the NARA files, but that is what The Evidence is -- a transcription, not a personal piece of interpreting historical data. It appears that The Life and Times of John Wilkes Booth is an amateurish attempt to compete with the more scholarly ...Day by Day?