Jules Verne Series

Preamble: The initial purpose of this page is to gather information and opinions on how to document series for Jules Verne. Once sufficient consensus is reached, it will be cleaned up to document how the various series should be documented.

For now, use the discussion page for comments and questions and as material arises, we can add it to this layout.

TITLE Series

"These series are linked by common characters, story lines or settings. Every publication of a given title will have the same series information." - from Help:How to work with series

A TITLE can belong to only one Series, but there is a Notes template {{MultiS}} which allows an editor to identify that the title belongs to additional series.

The existing series are:

• Baltimore Gun Club - three Verne titles sharing a fictional organization and characters.
• Captain Grant and Captain Nemo Universe - three Verne titles sharing characters.
  • Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (abridgments, adaptations, and excerpts) a sub-series to deal treatments of the novels.
• Robur (Jules Verne) - two Verne titles sharing a character.

• Pym - links a Verne sequel to an Edgar Allan Poe title.
• The Swiss Family Robinson - links a Verne title to a Johann David Wyss title.

• Captain Hatteras - used to bring two parts of a novel together. One entry is used for part 1 and the combined editions.
• La mission Barsac - contains one novel published in two parts where the English translations gave each part a separate title.

• Voyages extraordinaires - many of Verne's titles not included in any of the series above.

• Works of Jules Verne - a multi-volume series for the omnibus container titles. There are multiple publication series for the set.

Some series contain excerpts, abridgements and omnibuses (at the title level).

PUBLICATION Series

"A publication series is a set of similarly packaged books designated by the publisher (or publishers), often related only in theme or marketing. They may share an editor, or a presentor, or merely be grouped by the publisher." ... "Different editions or publications of the same title may not all belong to a given publication series, indeed it is possible for different publications of the same title to belong to two or more different publication series." - from How to work with series

"A Publication Series is a series of publications. This is what distinguishes Publication Series from regular Series, which link titles. Publication Series generally consist of otherwise unrelated texts that were grouped by the publisher in some way. Sometimes they share the same editor, e.g. Ballantine Adult Fantasy was edited by Lin Carter, sometimes they share the same presenter, e.g. A Frederik Pohl Selection, and oftentimes it's something arbitrarily chosen by the publisher, e.g. Lost Fantasies. " - from Help:Screen:PublicationSeries.

"A Publication series is a group of publications marked out by the Publisher in some way. Unlike ordinary content-based series, different publications or editions of a book may belong to different Publication series." - from Template:PublicationFields:PubSeries help template included in NewPub help texts.

A publication can belong to only one Publication Series, but there is a Notes template {{MultiPubS}} which allows an editor to identify that the publication belongs to additional series.

The existing French language publishers with more than 2 publications and their series are:

• J. Hetzel - the original publisher with Bibliothèque d'éducation et de récréation (102), Collection Hetzel (7), Voyages extraordinaires (3)
• Hachette - the publisher who took ownership around 1920 with Bibliothèque de la jeunesse (1), Collection des Voyages extraordinaires (2), Collection Hetzel (4), Grands Albums Hachette (1), Idéal - Bibliothèque (1) and Nouvelle collection des œuvres de Jules Verne (3)
• Le Livre de Poche - a Hachette imprint started in the 1960's with Le Livre de Poche (5), Le Livre de Poche - Jeunesse (1) and Le Livre de Poche - Jules Verne (32).

Based on an examination of about 150 J. Hetzel editions, the potential series would be (there is overlap):

• Les voyages extraordinaires (120)
• Voyages extraordinaires (57)
• Collection Hetzel (83)
• Collection J. Hetzel (7)
• Bibliothèque d'éducation et de récréation (107)
• Edition Hetzel (4)
• Edition J. Hetzel (3)
• Les mondes connus et inconnus (3)

The most used in a single publication is 5.

Problem statements

1 - Is Voyages extraordinaires a title series or publisher series?

• The books included under the series Voyages extraordinaires have no characters or story line in common and the only place they have in common is Earth (as an origin). The term describes a theme rather than a series. As such they belong together, but not under the ISFDB definition of a Title series.
• The term Voyages extraordinaires is only used in the French editions, and has not been translated in any of the English translations, beyond in essays and publisher's material.
• The name is not used consistently in all editions/printings of any given title, even by the same publisher. For example the 1865 edition of Cinq semaines en ballon makes no mention of the series, but the 1917 edition does.
• The publisher seems to intend a cohesiveness to the titles, as the term has been used when listing titles in ads.
• The name has been applied to the books regardless of edition or format. The publisher treats the titles as belonging to the series.

2 - Assuming we document additional title/publication series using a template, does it matter which series uses the normal linked form?

3 - How strictly should documented series name follow the publication?

• J. Hetzel published editions with Voyages extraordinaires and Les voyages extraordinaires, sometime with both in the same publication.
• There are publications with Collection Hetzel and Collection J. Hetzel.
• There are publications with Edition J. Hetzel and Collection Hetzel.

4 - Should series names taken from every part of the publication?

• The potential series names appear on covers, above, below and as part of frontispiece illustrations and on title pages (there are sometimes more than one title or titled illustration in a book).
• Many of the Hachette editions reprint the title and frontispiece pages from earlier editions, sometimes replacing the publisher. We use the image as a title page for title/publisher purposes, should we use it for publication series?
• For books that have not been examined or do not have primary verifiers, can a series name be assumed?

Proposal

1 Use Les voyages extraordinaires as a title series. Discourage the use of Voyages extraordinaires.

• A distinction not made in the difference between title and publication series lies in intention. If you interpret a Title Series as grouped by author intention vs. Publication Series as grouping by publisher's intention, then Voyages extraordinaire is a Title Series. Jules Verne said it was "a series which shall conclude in story form my whole survey of the world’s surface and the heavens". The publisher may have named it, and used it in publicity and advertising, but it was Verne who crafted the mosaic.
• Les voyages extraordinaires is used twice as often as Voyages extraordinaires and Voyages extraordinaires is rarely used alone.
• This would involve changing about 50 titles.

An alternative proposal is to make the various title series sub-series of Les voyages extraordinaires.

This would be problematic for the Pym and Robinson series which involve books by other authors.

2 Document Les voyages extraordinaires using a template for those titles where another Title Series is in use.

• The ISFDB database and software do not support multiple Title Series for a single title. Les voyages extraordinaires does not override the need for other Title Series so they must co-exist.
• The support for documenting an additional series is the use of a template ({{MultiS}} The other series is {{S|''Series Name''}}. ).
• This approach requires the Series Name to exist, which requires other entries. And the Series page will not reference back to the title.
• Many of the other Title Series used for Jules Verne would be meaningless without all entries. They should remain, with the exception of the single use Barsac Mission and the split Captain Hatteras.
• The subseries for abridgements etc should remain for now, as it is one approach to dealing with abridgements that shouldn't be lost. It's an English database, so using the French title raises a question.
• The existing Voyages extraordinaire Title Series (renamed) should remain with the existing titles. It is confusing to have them mixed, but the series notes identify the exceptions and some must remain to keep the Title Series from being empty and deleted.

3 Each publication series name would be documented as printed in the text. Variations will be cross-referenced in their respective notes. Following on from point 2 above, at least one occurrence of each variation must be documented using the Publication Series field to ensure its existence. Beyond that, Collection Hetzel should have priority.

• ISFDB documents books as published, even to the point of including typographical errors. Why should publication series names be any different?
• Collection has priority because the series has an impact beyond that of Jules Verne titles.

4 All of the printed series names should be included.

• Series names can and are taken from wherever they are printed for other authors and publications.
• We record the publications as we find them, not as might be intended. If a publisher re-uses title pages and illustrations that include references to earlier series by themselves or prior incarnations, it should be recorded.
• If there is no verified copy, then there should be no publication series (as Publication Series field or template) documented unless there is an additional source (e.g. publisher catalogues) which would be documented in the publication notes.