Complete EEBO-TCP/PP Public Domain Puritan Collection - PB's - 6/13/25

David Jonescue

Hello all, hope everybody is having a blessed day. By the Lords providence, I was made privy to a way to get all of the files prepared for a PB collection. This Collection is around 6,654 titles, from around 980 Puritans & 17th century Non-Conformists, taken from the Public Domain digital repository of EEBO-TCP and Evans-TCP. Previously I had attempted this, that is to accumulate all of these texts I could find; but at the time, I was doing it as I went, and the format ended rather messy, with everything out of alphabetical order, all while still in the middle of finding new Puritans and Non-Conformists almost daily. And on top of that, with the gracious assistance of Logan West and Alex Sarrouf over at Project Puritas, them being able to tremendously upgrade these texts from what is seen on EEBO-TCP (though their contribution cannot be valued in all that they have done making these texts available,) this left my former effort basically useless. This is why the previous Collection has been barred access for almost 2 years. And, what kind of spurred the creation of this, is I have received Drive requests for those files, multiple times a week, almost every week, since 2023. So presented is the effort to provide so many folks with what they have requested. Please forgive its faults.

While this present set-up is most likely far from perfect, there have been some major improvements.

1. All of the texts have been "cleaned up" (the process was generating a list of all misspelled words in the corpus, then manually providing an alternative, then "cleaning" the whole corpus by that list via Logan's programming skills.) The main reason this was necessary, is because EEBO-TCP, being a professional academic endeavor, coded the texts as they look in the facsimiles, and not necessarily how they are properly spelled. This "cleaning" process makes searching tremendously easier.
2. Each text includes a link (which was previously working, no current guarantees) at the top of the work, that leads right back to the original in EEBO/EVANS-TCP just in case the original must be consulted.
3. Each work is now in alphabetical order.
4. Each docx. volume is significantly larger (I wouldn't try to open the docx.'s on a home computer) which has taken it from almost 200 vols. to 36 vols.
5. Covers for each volume have been provided, but are, of course, optional.
6. An Excel Spreadsheet has been provided, that goes over the majority of Non-Spelling errors in each text, letting people know with a quick glance, the general quality of each text in the Corpus.
7. An Index Volume has been provided.

Now to touch on the issue that was brought up last time I attempted this. 1. All of these works are Public Domain. 2. Yes they include some works that Logos offers officially. 1. Is pretty self-explanatory, so we will deal with 2. This Collection is in no way an attempt to devalue Logos offerings. To even compare these works to the quality of Logos works is absurd. There is no linking, there are no chapter divisions, there is little but basic formatting, and there are usually several errors in each work, sometimes many. Instead, this Collection is for Deep research into the Puritan and Non-Conformist era. It covers a vast amount of their source works. It allows people to create a Collection, and search specifically within this genre, which research on TCP doesn't allow. While Logos does have some Puritans, and I personally own their "Ultimate" among others, that is a small portion of the over-all literature coming from that period. This resource is so that the power of Logos can be harnessed with these works, it is in no way to compete with them, as frankly, there is no comparison.

I have tested multiple volumes, and all converted and compiled with no issues. except some warnings. So, I hope this can be a blessing to some people. And, Logos, if you would like, the offer stands to make this an official Resource. The only request is that it would be free, as it was given to us by EEBO-TCP, and again offered to all by Project Puritas. I hope everyone has a blessed day.

For His Glory, and our good. S.D.G.

D. Jonescue

The Zip Containing the Entire Resource can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YFEwSlkF1jy5XW0RUntziHHEFFfkHK7W/view?usp=drive_link

The Index to Resource can be previewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1orur-ebLjCFZjfmbA_DyOwAQDuyLVNG6/view?usp=drive_link

Above is the updated, corrected version as of 4:48pm 6/13/25

And a reminder to those Puritan and Reformed loving people you know. This resource may be a good, risk free introduction to Logos, because this resource can be paired at no cost with the Logos Free Edition - https://www.logos.com/free-edition

David Jonescue

****Resource has been corrected and posted above. 4:48pm 6/13/25

While I have the opportunity, I would like to explain a little more about the resource.

This resource is compiled of all the Puritan and Non-Conformists works we could find in EEBO-TCP (Phase I & II) and Evans-TCP at the time. This includes of course English Puritans, but also those normally described as Scottish and American Puritans, when they could be located. The basis for the authors included were those listed as Puritans and Non-Conformists by experts such as:

Dr. C. McMahon's "Puritan Bio's List" from A Puritans Mind, Beeke & Pedersons "Meet the Puritans," Brooks 3 vol. "Lives of the Puritans," PRDL (Post-Reformation Digital Library) "Puritans List," PRTS (Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary) "Puritans List," Lyon G. Turners "Original records of early non-conformity under persecution," the DNB (Dictionary of National Biography) "Puritans and Non-Conformist" listings, Calamys "Non-Conformist Memorial," the "Encyclopedie Nadere Reformatie," the "All of the Writings of the Scottish Covenanters" section from Reformed Books Online, Sibley's "Harvard Graduates" vols.1-5 (or 1642-1701,) and Puritan suggestions from the online forum The Puritan Board.

Regarding the "cleaning" of the texts. AI was not used in this process. Instead, Logan West, who is a professional programmer, was able to write a programming script in which extracted all of the "misspellings" from the 6,600+ work Corpus. Then, those misspellings were put into a Spreadsheet, and manually given corrected alternatives by Logan West, and Alex Sarrouf. This corrected list was implemented via programming automation, and then used to "clean" the works in the Corpus. In the end, about 26,000 of the most common misspellings were located, which resulted in about 23,000,000 corrections in the 6,600 work Corpus. An example is as follows:

This makes general searching significantly easier, at the same time, a link has been provided at the top of each work in case the original in TCP needs to be consulted. The links I have recently checked still work. But all may not, as TCP has upgraded/updated their website since this project was concluded in 2023.

Also, the works are listed with "Short Titles" or "Simplified Titles." This was done so that the automation of these works was possible. Puritans and Non-Conformists are notorious for sometimes paragraph long book titles, and that wouldn't work for this project. The original title for each work can be found in the beginning of each work under the short Project Puritas intro.

Lastly, as to the quality of the texts:

5,907 out of the 6,654 texts have less than 1% Non-Spelling Errors.

459 out of the 6,654 texts have 1%-2% Non-Spelling Errors.

288 out of the 6,654 texts have 2% or greater Non-Spelling Errors.

These Errors were out of our hands, as they relate to the quality of the original EBBO Facsimiles the transcribers worked with for the TCP project. Many of these facsimiles were preserved using much older copying techniques. And as such, preservation was often far from perfect. Anybody who has utilized EEBO-Proquest can attest to this. The transcribers could only transcribe what they were able to see and decipher.

Within the transcription process, due to the style of lettering in the 17th century, sometimes letters like s,l,t,f etc. can be misconstrued. If one is using this resource for strict academic purposes, it is best to not only check the academic source on TCP, but also the facsimile itself which can be accessed via Proquest. For general research, the same can be applicable, but it is good to mention that now days many of the original facsimiles of these works can also be found on free-access places like Internet Archive, Google Books, PRDL, and Hathitrust.

For further explanations on the processing of these texts, please visit either the Project Puritas or the Puritan Search websites. Each can be found with a simple Google Search.

S.D.G.

D.J.