|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 27
It may be that Saunders wrote the name Drake, for it was James
Rodman Drake who did ``The Culprit Fay.'' Perhaps it was the
printer's fault that the poem is accredited to Dana. Perhaps Mr.
Saunders writes so legible a hand that the printers are careless
with his manuscript.
``There is,'' says Wheatley, ``there is a popular notion among
authors that it is not wise to write a clear hand. Menage was
one of the first to express it. He wrote: `If you desire that
no mistake shall appear in the works which you publish, never
send well-written copy to the printer, for in that case the
manuscript is given to young apprentices, who make a thousand
errors; while, on the other hand, that which is difficult to read
is dealt with by the master-printers.' ''
The most distressing blunder I ever read in print was made at the
time of the burial of the famous antiquary and litterateur, John
Payne Collier. In the London newspapers of Sept. 21, 1883, it
was reported that ``the remains of the late Mr. John Payne
Collier were interred yesterday in Bray churchyard, near
Maidenhead, in the presence of a large number of spectators.''
Thereupon the Eastern daily press published the following
remarkable perversion: ``The Bray Colliery Disaster. The
remains of the late John Payne, collier, were interred yesterday
afternoon in the Bray churchyard in the presence of a large
number of friends and spectators.''
Far be it from the book-lover and the book-collector to rail at
blunders, for not unfrequently these very blunders make books
valuable. Who cares for a Pine's Horace that does not contain
the ``potest'' error? The genuine first edition of Hawthorne's
``Scarlet Letter'' is to be determined by the presence of a
certain typographical slip in the introduction. The first
edition of the English Scriptures printed in Ireland (1716) is
much desired by collectors, and simply because of an error.
Isaiah bids us ``sin no more,'' but the Belfast printer, by some
means or another, transposed the letters in such wise as to make
the injunction read ``sin on more.''
The so-called Wicked Bible is a book that is seldom met with,
and, therefore, in great demand. It was printed in the time of
Charles I., and it is notorious because it omits the adverb
``not'' in its version of the seventh commandment; the printers
were fined a large sum for this gross error. Six copies of the
Wicked Bible are known to be in existence. At one time the late
James Lenox had two copies; in his interesting memoirs Henry
Stevens tells how he picked up one copy in Paris for fifty
guineas.
Rabelais' printer got the satirical doctor into deep water for
printing asne for ame; the council of the Sorbonne took the
matter up and asked Francis I. to prosecute Rabelais for heresy;
this the king declined to do, and Rabelais proceeded forthwith to
torment the council for having founded a charge of heresy upon a
printer's blunder.
Once upon a time the Foulis printing establishment at Glasgow
determined to print a perfect Horace; accordingly the proof
sheets were hung up at the gates of the university, and a sum of
money was paid for every error detected.
Notwithstanding these precautions the edition had six uncorrected
errors in it when it was finally published. Disraeli says that
the so-called Pearl Bible had six thousand errata! The works of
Picus of Mirandula, Strasburg, 1507, gave a list of errata
covering fifteen folio pages, and a worse case is that of
``Missae ac Missalis Anatomia'' (1561), a volume of one hundred
and seventy-two pages, fifteen of which are devoted to the
errata. The author of the Missae felt so deeply aggrieved by
this array of blunders that he made a public explanation to the
effect that the devil himself stole the manuscript, tampered with
it, and then actually compelled the printer to misread it.
I am not sure that this ingenious explanation did not give origin
to the term of ``printer's devil.''
It is frightful to think
What nonsense sometimes
They make of one's sense
And, what's worse, of one's rhymes.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|