More about the texts
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ovid and Riley, Henry T. (Henry Thomas)
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated by Henry Thomas Riley (1816-1878, B.A. 1840, M.A. 1859), was originally published in 1851 as part of Bohn’s Classical Library. This e-text, covering Books I-VII, is based on two reprints:
George Bell (London, 1893, one volume). This edition describes itself as “reprinted from the stereotype plates”. These may have been the original 1851 plates; the Classical Library was sold to Bell & Daldy, later George Bell.
David McKay (Philadelphia, 1899, two volumes), with introduction by Edward Brooks. The introductory material from the Bell/Bohn edition is absent. This edition was freshly typeset, correcting a few errors in the Bell/Bohn edition but also introducing a number of new errors.
The McKay edition was the “base” of the e-text. The scanned, proofread text was computer-checked against the text of the Bell edition, and differences were in turn checked against page images of the printed books. Where appropriate, the text was checked against one or more versions of the Latin original. Most differences are trivial. McKay uses American spelling such as “honor” for “honour”, and compound forms such as “northwest” for “north-west”; punctuation is often changed, though some apparent variations may be due to the quality of printing and reproduction.
Note that the title page of the Bell edition lists the translator as “Henry T. Riley, B.A.”, while the McKay edition has “M.A.” The sequence of dates—original publication 1851, Riley M.A. 1859, reprint 1893—supports the idea that the Bell edition is a strict facsimile.