I do so wish that Abingdon and Logos would publish the Bicentennial Edition of Wesley's Works, but there is little I can do about it, other than request both companies to consider it. That I have done.
Since this is the only scholarly and critical edition of John Wesley's Works, I decided to select just a few of Wesley's Sermons with Albert Outler's wonderful footnotes and make myself a PB of some of the sermons.
I have had success in making a few personal books. So I have gone to work on this little project.
(I am convinced that current copyright law allows for conversion of a legally purchased electronic document from one format to another for personal use, so long as one doesn't distribute it in any way. And I only intend to do some small sections for obvious reasons.)
It is indeed a daunting task. So far I have converted the Introduction to Sermons I-IV and Sermon #1 to a Personal Book. There are 128 footnotes in just Sermon #1. Doggone it, I believe Albert Outler knew too much about John Wesley! There are 151 Sermons in the set. Imagine how many tens of thousands of footnotes must be in the entire set of Sermons, Journals, Essays, Letters, and other Wesleyan writings. And if I understand the law, any help in converting the format of such material would be illegal. No distribution is allowed. Personal use only with copyrighted material.
I did buy the Bicentennial Edition of Wesley in Abingdon's old Folio format. Copying the text in order to convert it is no problem, but the footnotes do not copy with text. They must be individually added. That is individually copied and pasted. And the footnotes are the most valuable part by far. There is no point in doing it at all without these footnotes from the world's best Wesleyan Scholars.
Just to convert a small selection of Wesley's Sermons for a Personal Book will have to become a hobby. Perhaps by the time I finish ten to twenty of the sermons and a selection or two of the Journal, Logos will announce they are publishing it. It is kind of like washing your car in order to make it rain.
