Thursday, February 13, 2014

Digital Edition of the Loeb Classical Library coming in late 2014


Fans of the iconic green (Greek) and red (Latin) covered bi-lingual volumes in the Loeb Classical Library from Harvard University Press will be interested to hear that there are plans to offer a digitized version of the complete collection by late 2014.  There were stirs a few years ago when the modern editors began issuing new editions which removed "the last bastion of Anglo-American restraint" and offered literal renderings of the "blue" and risqué original content (see here and here; warning:  mature content), as well as updating the epic King James-ian language of some editions.

As one of the executive editors says in the video below, the digital edition represents another "technological upgrade" in the transmission of the texts (oral to written; scroll to codex; manuscript to printed page).  Indeed, it is hard to prophesy what the brave new world of the digital revolution will mean for the preservation of printed texts (most importantly, for the transmission of the Bible; see my review of D. C. Parker's Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament here [pp. 81-84]).  Anyhow, the digital edition of the Loeb Classical Library will be quite a resource.  I wonder what it will cost, given that the complete collection of the printed edition can now be had for $10,140 (and that at a 25% discount, according to the 2013 catalogue!).
 
 

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