News: restoring antique books
One of my favorite pastimes when I was growing up was driving around with my mother to book sales. Especially sales at the small libraries housed in old New England buildings. Sorting through rows of books to find the types that excited and educated my young mind. It has always been a dream of mine to restore the “lost” treasures I found and read while growing up, and I am pleased to begin with The Sea Lord.
This year I am pleased to begin the expansion of Flaming Pen Press as my family business. Efforts include publishing Neverqueen2, setting up The Sea Lord for publication, and exploring re-opening Flaming Pen Press to original fantasy submissions.
The Sea Lord tells the life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, whose boyhood home was a beached ship. Written in a very entertaining manner (but not an embellishing one) this work will particularly appeal to young men. Homeschool students will love the fluidity of the prose, as well as the lack of modern twisting of the history to satisfy current social trends. Instead of delivering opinions on Drake the author stuck to the story as history showed it.
I picked this old book up at a library sale many years ago and have since discovered that it has fallen out of copyright. It is a real gem that I know you will be glad you added to your personal library. The goal is to offer it in paperback and digital form.
The trickiest part of the process will be preserving the original illustrations, which brings you the mood and authenticity that I value in this work. Besides that it is a lot of time that I am spending to transcribe the text into a Word document. Some companies choose to scan the pages of old books and release them in that manner, but in doing so they risk loss of text and lack of an editorial eye.
The Sea Lord is merely the first in a large collection of antique books that I will be restoring over the years.
Q: Do you know of any old books that you wish were again available in print form?
