Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

"Mr" and "Mrs", etc should be removed from the author names. I clean them up when I find them, but there are still massive amounts out there.

Hannah wrote: ""Mr" and "Mrs", etc should be removed from the author names. I clean them up when I find them, but there are still massive amounts out there."

Make sure to verify that the Mrs. isn't appropriate, as it is for Mrs. Henry Wood.

Oh, yes, worth a note!

How about this: search the author's name to make sure of the status.
I'm continually fixing these:
Mrs CN Williamson (should be A.M. Williamson, I think—I go with the most complete profile)
Mrs Amelia Barr (should be Amelia E. Barr)
Mrs Southworth
Mr Stanley Weyman
Captain Charles King/General Charles King (same guy)

Last week I got a good chuckle out of MR Maud Wilder Goodwin, who just so happens to have been a woman writer!

I try to find an original publication and fix according to how the author published. Only if the Mrs. precedes her own given name would I remove the Mrs. The most complete profile is not always correct.

I was advised to keep the most complete profile in such cases by this group...
Is it okay to fix ones that are totally different from how it was published? Let me go hunt the example I am thinking of...

Here's one: Margaret Wade Campbell Deland. There are tons of books here, but she published under Margaret Deland. See book cover:


Can I change those, especially in cases where the author wrote under exactly the same name the whole time?

Yes. Use the most complete name they actually published under while alive.

The "Use the most complete version"

The PD publishers who are now bulk republishing out of copyright books tend to use all kinds of crazy variants, including full names that were never used in life, titles and even dates, so you'll find all those on covers dating from the last ten years or so, but we routinely clean them off. (ETA: It's usually worth giving the full name in the author bio though.)

I think public domain is going to drive me batty.

If they ever lock me up it might be because of what I find in the catalog!! ;)

That's great, though. I will be sure to update those as I find them and note the full name in the bio as needed. Some of these were so on my nerves!