The new page is here: Chapter One (Annotated)
Annotating the first chapter has been a long process, but it is a new process, so I will be quicker in the future. My research and informative writing skills have improved substantially in the past half year, and I’m sure that growth is far from exhausted. In time, I’ll develop better intuition for which details deserve explanation and how much to give.
This has also been an opportunity to give the first chapter a badly-needed rewrite. These sample chapters are works in progress until otherwise noted.
My next step is to add a bibliography to this new annotation. I cited most of my draft notes, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. But I am still frustrated by a few topics which deserve more authoritative sources than I’ve been able to find (notably, 17th century English domestic staff and dressing routines). Another challenge is that I’m not sure what bibliographic format is appropriate (e.g., MLA, Chicago, etc.).
After the bibliography, I’ll revise chapter two and add its annotated version. I will probably post regular and annotated versions of future sample chapters simultaneously.
At some point, I’ll add links to the footnotes so readers can easily jump between the chapter and the note. Hopefully, I’ll also find a way to auto-number footnotes in WordPress. Changing dozens of numbers manually because I wanted to add a new note in the middle was annoying, and that happened many times.
Fred Watts 