The use of digital editions is greatly enhanced through the use of text search features. That usefulness can be stymied by variations, intentional or not, in spelling. The decision was taken here to attempt to regularize spelling where printer or editorial errors were made, or where there seemed to be gratuitous variations. Unfortunately, there were many such errors, both in this volume and in the first.
For errors in the English text, corrections were made where they could be reasonably attributed to the printer or editor, or where the same English word appears as expected elsewhere.
One cannot determine a ‘correct’ printing of Korean, Chinese or Japanese proper or place names. The romanization of Korean words was changing even as this text was being prepared in the early 20th century. The author notes (Vol I, p. [iv]) that a system of his own was adopted during the preparation of this text, but a more official system issued by the Royal Asiatic Society was employed later. The result, as he says, is that there are inconsistencies in the spelling of proper names. Sometimes variations can appear on a single page or paragraph. Since it is impossible to distinquish between printer lapses and this variability, proper names are generally given here as they appeared in the text.
Exceptions are made where frequently used names (e.g., ‘Ko-gu-ryŭ’) very occasionally appear in other forms.
Where the quality of the source text is suspect, the most common version of a given name is used. Hyphenation can be very difficult to discern, with the inking sometimes being vestigial.
The system in use in this volume for Korean seems to solely employ ‘ŭ’ and ‘ă’, except for the occasional ‘oé’ or ‘ö’. On rare occasions, ‘ŭ’ will appear to be printed with the diaeresis ‘ü’, which is most likely a poorly inked breve. There are also transliterations for Japanese and Manchu which may include ‘ŏ’ and ‘ă’. Many names appear in the text with or without diacritical marks, with alternate transliterations, e.g. ‘gwi’, ‘kwi’ or ‘guei’, and with or without hyphenation. A good example appears on pp. [252] and [259], where the name of a Chinese war-ship appears as ‘Kwang-chia’, ‘Kwan-chia’, ‘Kwang-yi’, ‘Kwang-ki’.
Another exception is made for the (presumable) misprinting of proper names, which, according to the author’s [Preface] to Volume I, have no hyphen between the patronymic and the following given names, which are hyphenated. Where this rule is violated, the hyphen is removed. Where a hyphen occurs at the end of a line, it is retained or removed depending on the preponderance of other instances of the same word.
There is no mention by the author regarding the use of the special characters ‘ and ’ within Korean names. More modern romanization schemes simply utilize the apostrophe (’) to indicate aspirated consonants (p’, t’, k’, and Ch’). In this text, however, though the place-name ‘P‘yŭng-yang’ can be found much more frequently than ‘P’yŭng-yang’, there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the variations. Both will occasionally appear in different words on the same page. Every attempt was made to follow the text.
The second chapter of this volume was inadvertently headed as Chapter XI, and is referred to here as Chapter I-A. Also, the heading of Chapter X was misprinted as XX.
The author consistently uses the word ‘geurilla’, where modern usage would have us using ‘guerrilla’ or ‘guerilla’, and that has been honored here. Other words which are consistently spelled oddly (e.g. ‘preceeding’, ‘peddlar’, ‘interferance’) are retained.