McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader (ABC Books rebuild guide) 11OCT2026

Book 6 of ABC Books: all 117 selections in prose and poetry, with McGuffey's word meanings and the authors

Posted by on 11th Oct 2026

The sixth book in ABC Books is McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition (1879): all 117 "selections in prose and poetry". It's the teal book on the shelf at https://games.503mail.com/abcbooks/. Lessons play like the Fourth Reader's: tap a new word to hear its meaning, listen, read, trace and write. The app is rebuilt in the Primer post. Every block has a Copy button.

The book

  • McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition, copyright 1879, from Project Gutenberg #15040 (public domain).
  • 117 selections from well-known writers: "The Good Reader" (Frederick the Great and his pages), "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Rainy Day" (Longfellow), "The Blind Men and the Elephant" (Saxe), "Break, Break, Break" (Tennyson), "Dissertation on Roast Pig" (Charles Lamb), "William Tell" (in two parts), Hamlet (Shakespeare), "The Passenger Pigeon" (Audubon) and more. Lessons are long: about 5,700 lines in all, the longest being "William Tell" with 319.
  • 83 lessons end with DEFINITIONS, so their new words come with McGuffey's meanings; the others get new words worked out automatically. 98 lessons have their author from the contents page.
  • The book opens with chapters on reading aloud (articulation, inflection, accent, emphasis, modulation, poetic pauses). Those are for the teacher and are not lessons in the app.

What the converter had to handle

On top of the Fourth Reader's heading mode:

  • No page numbers in the headings: "II. THE BLUEBELL." A heading counts if its numeral is the next lesson number or up to two further on, so a heading the scan missed can't drop the rest of the book.
  • The first heading is scanned as "1. THE GOOD READER." with an Arabic 1, so numerals may be digits too.
  • A heading starting with a quote: XXI. "I PITY THEM.".
  • The contents page has no page column ("3. The Gentle Hand T. S. Arthur."), and it's followed by a list of illustrations with the artists' names. Authors are only read between "CONTENTS" and "LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS", so an illustrator never becomes an author.
  • Notes about the author at the start of a lesson ("Timothy S. Arthur was born near Newburgh...") are kept as the lesson's "about" text instead of being read aloud (69 lessons).
  • "DID N'T" in a heading becomes "Didn't".

Add this book to ABC Books

You need the app from the Primer post, with make-book.ps1, make-audio.ps1 and app.js from the Fourth Reader post or newer.

1. Make the lesson file

PC (PowerShell). It prints "117 lessons":

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\ABCBooks\tools\make-book.ps1 -Book fifth1879

2. Record it with Eloquence

PC (PowerShell). This book is long: about 22,100 recordings per speed, about 35 minutes for both speeds here:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\ABCBooks\tools\make-audio.ps1 -Book fifth1879

Send them to CT 306 (abc-web), then check nothing is missing:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\ABCBooks\tools\push-audio.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\ABCBooks\tools\check-audio.ps1 -Book fifth1879

3. Put it on the server

PC (PowerShell):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\ABCBooks\deploy.ps1

Troubleshooting

  • Lessons missing or out of order: run step 1 and read the list; each lesson prints its number. Look a missing number up in source\fifth.txt (headings are lines like "XLV. THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.").
  • A recording is missing: check-audio.ps1 -Book fifth1879, then run make-audio.ps1 again; it only records what's missing.
  • The logs and the Tablet check page are in the Primer post.

Notes

  • Lessons are long for a young reader; the copy work stays short (new words six to a page, up to six short sentences) and the reading step goes line by line.
  • Some lessons are plays (William Tell, Hamlet) with speakers' names; they're read as written.