[jQuery] tablesorter plugin help -- getting it to ignore quotation marks

[clorentzen]

I'm using the tablesorter plugin, and have run into a small issue I
can't figure out how to solve:

One of the columns in my table contains titles, some of which are
books, others of which are articles or television episodes. The latter
two start with a double quote (“)...

So, for example, one cell in the column might be:

<td><em>Title of Book</em></td>

while another would be:

<td>&#8220;Title of Article&#8221;</td>

Tablesorter seems to be factoring these starting double quotes into
the sort order for that column, so I end up with a list that is titles
without quotes alphabetically first, and then titles with quotes
alphabetically second.

Is there any way I can get it to ignore the double quote, so that
sorting on the column always goes by the first actual letter of the
text?

Thanks a bunch for any help.