Scan of The Autobiography of WHD

Here, finally, is a PDF of Scan of the Autobiography of William Henry Donner.

It was quite an adventure trying to get Google (Blogger, Google Docs, Google Sites) to host a PDF without showing it in its own viewer. I ended up putting it up as an "attachment" on Google Sites and using a "Download" link in the management interface of Google Sites that I think/hope is actually usable by everyone.

You would think that sharing a PDF would be simple. Oh well, to err is human, to really screw things up requires a computer. I can't figure out whether this is Google's fault or, giving them the benefit of the doubt, somehow a result of their business strategy, which would somehow be impeded by easy hosting of PDFs viewed outside of their viewer.

Anyway, back to the content, I have definitely opted for content over form, inasmuch as those those two things can be separated.

In other words, this scan does no aesthetic justice to the original. I was concerned to keep file size small.

If you are fortunate enough to have access to one of the hundred copies of this book in existence, I highly encourage you to have a look. For the rest of you, here is the scan. At least I did the title page in color so you could get a sense of the use of red as well as black and I did the photo pages in gray scale rather than black and white.

I cropped the heck out of it so that a page contains pretty much only text. Though this ain't pretty, I thought it would make it easier to read in most programs on most screens.

There are lots of (small) blank pages sprinkled throughout; this is to make the PDF "just like the book," pagination-wise, including matching the content of what shows up int "two-up" viewing mode.