"Octavo continues to set the standard for electronic books....We didn't think it possible, but Octavo has surpassed its previous excellent efforts once again. Here on CD-ROM is the Kelmscott Chaucer, published by Kelmscott Press in London in 1896 and designed by William Morris... Octavo's utterly faithful-to-the-original work transcends what we thought an electronic image could achieve: you will feel the high-rag texture of the exquisite paper and smell the ink on this one. Highly recommended for electronic collections, library and personal."
- Library Journal
January, 1999

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Imaginary Friends
The copy of Benjamin Franklin's Experiments...on Electricity that Octavo has reproduced was previously owned by John William Ward, the first Earl of Dudley (1781-1833). Ward was an eccentric and often talked to himself in dialogue, one voice low and gruff, the other piercingly shrill. Contemporaries amused themselves by pretending that this merely reflected the split personality of a binomial, observing that "It is only Dudley talking to Ward." Ward was a scholar and a wit, no doubt enjoying Franklin's famous humor. The eminent Scottish philosopher Dugald Stewart was Ward's sometimes private tutor, from whom he is said to have contracted his unsettling habit of soliloquizing.