Read an e-book

Extract the text of frankenstein.epub into book.txt.

The task

The reference answer shows the job can be done with deft. It is not an agent run.

deft epub to-text frankenstein.epub -o book.txt

Input

frankenstein.epub 429.8 KB

[OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-0.htm.xhtml] The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before usi
[OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-1.htm.xhtml] CONTENTS Letter 1 Letter 2 Letter 3 Letter 4 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24
[OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-2.htm.xhtml] Letter 1 To Mrs. Saville, England. St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking. I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces
[OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-3.htm.xhtml] Letter 2 To Mrs. Saville, England. Archangel, 28th March, 17—. How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage. But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most seve
[OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-4.htm.xhtml] Letter 3 To Mrs. Saville, England. July 7th, 17—. My dear Sister, I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe—and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits: my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region tow
[OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-5.htm.xhtml] Letter 4 To Mrs. Saville, England. August 5th, 17—. So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession. Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, espe
… 3352 more characters

Reference output

book.txt 430.3 KB

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Release date: October 1, 1993 [eBook #84] Most recently updated: February 10, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

Credits: Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines. Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS ***

Frankenstein;

or, the Modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

CONTENTS

Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3

Letter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and
… 196023 more characters

How a result is judged (1 check)

text: file = "book.txt", contains = ["St. Petersburgh"]

Runs

CodexWithout deftPassed2026-11-07

Time: 26s
New tokens: 8.1k
Total input: 68.3k
Output tokens: 1.0k
Commands: 4
Failed: 0

Trace

I’ll locate the EPUB and extract its readable book text into `book.txt` in the current directory.
rg --files -g 'frankenstein.epub' -g 'AGENTS.md' -g '*.epub'
output
```
frankenstein.epub
```
python3 -c 'import importlib.util; print(\"ebooklib\", bool(importlib.util.find_spec(\"ebooklib\")))'
output
```
ebooklib False
```

python3 - <<'PY'
import zipfile, xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
p='frankenstein.epub'
with zipfile.ZipFile(p) as z:
    print(z.namelist()[:15])
    c=ET.fromstring(z.read('META-INF/container.xml'))
    print(c.find('.//{*}rootfile').attrib)
PY

output

['mimetype', 'META-INF/container.xml', 'OEBPS/7423641491831241083_cover.jpg', 'OEBPS/pgepub.css', 'OEBPS/0.css', 'OEBPS/1.css', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-0.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-1.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-2.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-3.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-4.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-5.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-6.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-7.htm.xhtml', 'OEBPS/4328224471496264690_84-h-8.htm.xhtml']
{'full-path': 'OEBPS/content.opf', 'media-type': 'application/oebps-package+xml'}

The EPUB is present and contains XHTML chapters. I’m extracting them in the book’s declared reading order and converting markup to plain text.
python3 - <<'PY' import zipfile, xml.etree.ElementTree as ET, posixpath, re from html.parser import HTMLParser class TextExtractor(HTMLParser): def __init__(self): super().__init__(convert_charrefs=True) self.parts=[] self.skip=0 def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs): if tag in ('script','style','head'): self.skip+=1 if not self.skip and tag in ('p','div','br','h1','h2','h3','h4','li','blockquote','tr'): self.parts.append('\\n') def handle_endtag(self, tag): if tag in ('script','style','head') and self.skip: self.skip-=1 if not self.skip and tag in ('p','div','h1','h2','h3','h4','li','blockquote','tr'): self.parts.append('\\n') def handle_data(self, data): if not self.skip: self.parts.append(data) src='frankenstein.epub' with zipfile.ZipFile(src) as z: container=ET.fromstring(z.read('META-INF/container.xml')) opf_path=container.find('.//{*}rootfile').attrib['full-path'] opf=ET.fromstring(z.read(opf_path)) base=posixpath.dirname(opf_path) manifest={item.attrib['id']:item.attrib['href'] for item in opf.findall('.//{*}manifest/{*}item')} spine=[item.attrib['idref'] for item in opf.findall('.//{*}spine/{*}itemref')] sections=[] for ref in spine: href=manifest.get(ref) if not href: continue path=posixpath.normpath(posixpath.join(base,href.split('#',1)[0])) if path not in z.namelist() or not path.lower().endswith(('.xhtml','.html','.htm')): continue parser=TextExtractor() parser.feed(z.read(path).decode('utf-8','replace')) text=''.join(parser.parts) text=re.sub(r'[\\t\\r\\f\\v ]+',' ',text) text=re.sub(r' *\\n *','\\n',text) t … 305 more characters
output
```
Wrote 438284 characters across 31 sections to book.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 user  staff   430K Nov  7 00:46 book.txt
```
Extracted the EPUB’s 31 sections into [book.txt](book.txt) (about 430 KB).

Output

book.txt 430.3 KB

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Release date: October 1, 1993 [eBook #84]

Most recently updated: February 10, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

Credits: Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines.

Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS ***

Frankenstein;

or, the Modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

CONTENTS

Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3

Letter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of
an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived
here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and
increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh,
I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and
fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has
travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste
of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become
more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat
of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the
region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its
broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour.
There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding
navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we
may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region
hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be
without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in
those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal
light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and
… 196023 more characters

CodexWith deft, skill installedPassedRead the skillUsed deft2026-11-07

Time: 16s
New tokens: 8.5k
Total input: 85.3k
Output tokens: 0.5k
Commands: 5
Failed: 0

Trace

I’ll use the local file tool workflow to inspect the EPUB and write its extracted text to `book.txt` in this directory.

cat .agents/skills/deft/SKILL.md

output

---
name: deft
description: "Use deft first for any simple, direct operation on local files, whatever the type: convert, read, extract, edit, compress, merge, split, compare or inspect. Try it before writing a script or one-liner. If unsure, run deft find; if it says no command does this, use another tool. Not for programming work: to read, write or change source code, skip it."
---

# deft

One local command for file jobs. Prefer it over writing Python or shell scripts.

Syntax: `deft <group> <command> [inputs] [-o output] [--options]`

Groups:
- `pdf`: Merge, split, compress, encrypt, forms, OCR, compare, convert
- `image`: Resize, crop, convert, compress, adjust, montage, OCR
- `video`: Trim, merge, convert, compress, subtitles, GIF, frames (ffmpeg)
- `audio`: Convert, trim, normalize, denoise, cut silence (ffmpeg)
- `doc`: Word/ODT/RTF: to text, Markdown, HTML, PDF; find and replace
- `slides`: PowerPoint: extract text, Markdown outline
- `sheet`: Excel/CSV/ODS tables: SQL query, pivot, merge, split, convert
- `json`: JSON: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `toml`: TOML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `xml`: XML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `yaml`: YAML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `md`: Markdown to PDF, HTML, Word, EPUB; table of contents
- `html`: HTML to Markdown, text, Word and PDF
- `epub`: E-books: info, to text, Markdown and PDF
- `gps`: GPX and KML tracks: convert, distance and time
- `qr`: Create QR codes and barcodes; r
… 700 more characters

deft epub

output

deft epub - commands (input -> output)
  info     epub -> report  Title, author, language, chapters, images, words
  from-md  md... -> epub   Make an e-book; each top-level heading starts a chapter
  to-md    epub -> md      Convert the whole book to Markdown
  to-pdf   epub -> pdf     Typeset the book as PDF
  to-text  epub -> txt     Extract plain text in reading order
More: deft epub <command> --help

rg --files -g 'frankenstein.epub' -g '"'!*node_modules*'"'
output
```
frankenstein.epub
```

deft epub to-text frankenstein.epub -o book.txt

output

ok epub.to-text frankenstein.epub -> book.txt  32 chapters  0.02s

ls -lh book.txt && wc -l -w book.txt

output

-rw-r--r--@ 1 user  staff   430K Nov  7 00:46 book.txt
    1766   78122 book.txt

Extracted the EPUB text to [book.txt](book.txt). It contains 32 chapters and about 78,122 words.

Output

book.txt 430.3 KB

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Title: Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Release date: October 1, 1993 [eBook #84] Most recently updated: February 10, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

Credits: Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines. Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS ***

Frankenstein;

or, the Modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

CONTENTS

Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3

Letter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.

Claude Opus 5.5Without deftPassed2026-11-07

Time: 21s
New tokens: 13.4k
Total input: 65.0k
Output tokens: 1.5k
Commands: 0
Failed: 0

Trace

Output

book.txt 430.3 KB

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Title: Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Release date: October 1, 1993 [eBook #84]
Most recently updated: February 10, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

Credits: Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines.
Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS ***

Frankenstein;

or, the Modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

CONTENTS

Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3

Letter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.

Claude Opus 5.5With deft, skill installedPassedRead the skillUsed deft2026-11-07

Time: 9s
New tokens: 10.3k
Total input: 59.8k
Output tokens: 0.4k
Commands: 0
Failed: 0

Trace

Output

.claude/skills/deft/SKILL.md 2.1 KB

---
name: deft
description: "Use deft first for any simple, direct operation on local files, whatever the type: convert, read, extract, edit, compress, merge, split, compare or inspect. Try it before writing a script or one-liner. If unsure, run deft find; if it says no command does this, use another tool. Not for programming work: to read, write or change source code, skip it."
---

# deft

One local command for file jobs. Prefer it over writing Python or shell scripts.

Syntax: `deft <group> <command> [inputs] [-o output] [--options]`

Groups:
- `pdf`: Merge, split, compress, encrypt, forms, OCR, compare, convert
- `image`: Resize, crop, convert, compress, adjust, montage, OCR
- `video`: Trim, merge, convert, compress, subtitles, GIF, frames (ffmpeg)
- `audio`: Convert, trim, normalize, denoise, cut silence (ffmpeg)
- `doc`: Word/ODT/RTF: to text, Markdown, HTML, PDF; find and replace
- `slides`: PowerPoint: extract text, Markdown outline
- `sheet`: Excel/CSV/ODS tables: SQL query, pivot, merge, split, convert
- `json`: JSON: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `toml`: TOML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `xml`: XML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `yaml`: YAML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `md`: Markdown to PDF, HTML, Word, EPUB; table of contents
- `html`: HTML to Markdown, text, Word and PDF
- `epub`: E-books: info, to text, Markdown and PDF
- `gps`: GPX and KML tracks: convert, distance and time
- `qr`: Create QR codes and barcodes; read QR codes

How to use it:
1. Run `deft <group>` to list commands, or `deft find "<what you want>"` to search. If it says `no command does this`, use another tool.
2. Run `deft <group> <command> --help` for options and examples.
3. `deft convert <in> -o <out.ext>` converts between formats by extension.
4. Results are one line starting with `ok`, `partial` or `error`; add `--json` to parse them. Errors include a `hint:` with the fix.

Inputs are never overwritten; pass `--force` or `--in-place` to allow it. Globs and directories work as inputs; several inputs run in parallel.

If `deft` is not installed, ask the user, then follow https://github.com/firstprayer/deft/blob/main/docs/INSTALL.md

book.txt 430.3 KB

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Title: Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Release date: October 1, 1993 [eBook #84] Most recently updated: February 10, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

Credits: Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines. Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS ***

Frankenstein;

or, the Modern Prometheus

by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

CONTENTS

Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3

Letter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.

Claude CodeWithout deftNot run yet

Claude CodeWith deftNot run yet