Encoding Samples

Please feel free to choose one of these to work with, or use a text of your own.

Typed Basic Samples from Several Genres

This handout is a set of simple samples from various genre that we have typed in.

Simple Genre Samples

General Encoding

These are selected sample texts for use in encoding practice. They represent a range of different document types and challenges.

Periodicals

Harper's Bazaar, from the Making of America website (could choose any one of these many periodicals)

Early printed books

Sancti Epiphanii (interesting-looking Renaissance text)
Opinions...on Negro Servitude

Modern manuscripts

Robert Graves diary (need to view letters one by one using the "Browse Diary Entries" option at left)
Dickinson Archive and in particular Susan Dickinson's letters:
Walt Whitman Archive

Medieval manuscripts

Lydgate’s Fall of Princes

Image-heavy document with some text

Specific Challenges

These samples were chosen to present particular encoding problems.

Encoding multiple witnesses

Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, 1855 (excerpt)

Page 23: local copy, Whitman Archive copy (start from "I am of old and young")
Page 24: local copy, Whitman Archive copy
Page 25: local copy, Whitman Archive copy

Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, 1891 (excerpt)

Page 42: local copy, Whitman Archive copy (start from "I am of old and young")
Page 42: local copy, Whitman Archive copy
Page 43: local copy, Whitman Archive copy

Encoding the writing and revision process

Walt Whitman's Hands Round, manuscript draft

Leaf 1 recto: local copy, Whitman Archive copy
Leaf 2 recto: local copy, Whitman Archive copy

Alternatively: Letter from Nicholas Brown to Pardon Sheldon

For those who want more of a challenge: Letter from Nicholas Brown to Esak Hopkins, 1764

leaf 1 recto (verso is blank)
leaf 2 recto
leaf 2 verso
link to live web version (better viewing)

Annotation and commentary

Pepys 4.317v: Private Occurrences, or, The Transactions of the four Last Years, Written in Imitation of the Old Ballad of Hey Brave Oliver, Ho Brave Oliver, etc.

Images of Whitman’s work courtesy of the Whitman Archive.