Background of The Oak Island Enigma

The Oak Island Enigma was written by Thomas P. Leary in 1953. It tells the basic story of the mystery surrounding Oak Island, Nova Scotia. It is a slim volume, just 30 or 40 pages. The book was hand-typeset by the author and self-published in only 100 copies.  (Remember this was 1953, before computers and text editors and so on. )

I saw my first copy in the Boston Public Library in 1978.  I already knew something about Oak Island.  I remember watching a television program on it in the mid-50's at my Grandparent's house -- just a kid laying on the floor watching TV.  There was an article in Esquire magazine in February 1973 "Mystery of Oak Island".  Now there is even a reality TV show on the History cable channel.

In the meantime, computer technology has created new possibilities in publishing.  I became interested in possibly taking this book and getting it republished using modern technology -- print-on-demand and as an eBook.

To prepare for that, I tried scanning the book, using a new flat bed scanner and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software.  This worked pretty well, and since it was a small book, I could correct the OCR errors and create an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) version of the book.  I tried that from a photocopy of the book from the Boston Public Library (Copy No. 82) that I made back in 1978, but it really didn't work.  Being back in Texas at that point, I got a copy (Copy No. 23) (I think it was from Middlebury College in Vermont).

For Copy No. 23, I used a newer flatbed scanner and made scans at both 300 and 600 dpi (dots per inch), and then OCR software to get the text.  The scans also gave me the images for the photos and figures used in the book. I have used the 600 dpi images as the base for all my work.

While I was working on the bits, I also tried to contact the author.  I eventually learned that he died in March 2005, but I was able to contact members of his family, to get their permission to reprint the book.

This blog is to record information about the issues involved in reprinting the book.