Chapter 20 Booksellers and Printers (2)

Judge Methuen told me that it is no longer fashionable to use the word "purity" when referring to people or things.This fad died many years ago, he said.At that time, a writer in a German article "made an interesting mistake because of an English review. The author of the English review, in order to distinguish George Krusinger from Robert Krusinger, claiming that the former was indeed 'pure'. The German did not understand the implication, and told his readers very seriously that George Cruzinger was a pseudonym and that his real name was 'Simon Peewle' [here "pure" The word used in the original text is simon-pure. This word is derived from the name of a character in Suzanne Santlivier's (1669-1723) play "The Wife's Decisive Measures", so there is such a misunderstanding. 】."

This incident was published by Henry B. Whitley in Mistakes in Literature.It's a very fascinating book, but one of the passages that interested me the most is the account of Frederick Saunders' eccentric error in his Tale of Some Famous Books.On page 169 of Sanders' book, we find this information: "Among the early American troubadours we may cite Dana. The Beauty of Poetry), is a tale of Hudson Highland mythology. The origin of the poem can be traced to a conversation with novelist Cooper and poet Fitzgreen Halleck. Halleck spoke of the Scottish river and its associated lore, insisting that American rivers are not easy to deal with like poetry. Dana thought differently and produced such an excellent poem three days later to support his position."

Maybe Sanders was writing about Drake, because it was James Rodman Drake who wrote "Criminal Pixies."Perhaps it was the fault of the hands that attributed the poem to Dana.It is also possible that Mr. Saunders' handwriting was so legible that the printers were careless with his manuscript. Whitley said: "There is a popular opinion among writers that it is not wise to write legibly. Menagher was the first to express this opinion. He wrote: 'If you wish to write in your Do not give a well-written copy to a printer if there are no errors in the published work. Then your manuscript will be handed over to a young apprentice who is sure to make mistakes. However, if it is read very If it is difficult, they will hand over the manuscript to the master master.'”

The saddest mistake I have ever read in print is that of the famous collector and writer John Payne Currier [Currier (1789-1883), an English expert on Shakespeare.His surname Collier is exactly the same as the word "coal miner", so there is a misunderstanding behind it. ] When it was buried.In the London papers of September 21, 1883, it was reported: "The body of the lately deceased John Payne Currier was laid yesterday at Bray's, near Maidenhead, with a large audience A funeral was held." So the Eastern Daily News published the following obviously misinterpreted news: "Disaster at Bray Mine. The body of recently deceased miner John Payne was laid to rest at Bray Cemetery yesterday afternoon in the presence of many friends and spectators. funeral."

Bibliophiles and bibliophiles are far apart for false complaints.It is not uncommon for mistakes to make books more precious.Who cares about the petty mistakes of Penn's Horace?The true first edition of Hawthorne's is judged by typographical errors in the preface. The first edition of the English Bible, printed in Ireland in 1716, is a collector's dream because of a small error.Isaiah commanded us to "sin no more," but the printers in Belfast, by some eccentricity, dropped the letters, and very wisely changed the admonition into "sin more." There is a so-called "Evil Version of the Bible", which is also a book that is extremely rare for us to see, so it is a rare commodity to live in, and it is hard to find one side.Printed in the time of Charles I, it is notorious for missing an adverb "no" from the seventh commandment.The printers were fined a large sum for this error.The "Evil Version of the Bible" that is now in the world [this "Evil Version of the Bible" was published in 1631, and the seventh commandment of the Ten Commandments of Moses "Do not commit adultery" is mistaken for "You must commit adultery".This mistake angered King Charles I, who ordered all of them to be destroyed, so few survive today. ], only six books are known.The late James Lennox had two copies at one point.Henry Stevens tells us in his entertaining autobiography that he found a copy in Paris for fifty tennies, a real bargain.

Rabelais' printers, by mistaking "vault" for "soul," dragged our sarcastic doctor into a deep ditch.Sorbonne Theological Seminary [Sorbonne Theological Seminary, the predecessor of the University of Paris. ] The Council referred the matter to Francis I and requested that Rabelais be charged with heresy.The king refused to do so, and Rabelais then did not hesitate to accuse the Sorbonne council of indiscriminate accusations based solely on the error of the printer, causing the council a headache. Once upon a time, the Fliers printing company in Glasgow, determined to print a perfect set of Horace, hung the proof-pages on the gates of the University, and offered a reward for every error.

Despite such precautions, this edition contained six unrevised errors when it was finally published.According to Disraeli, the so-called "Rare Edition Bible" has 6,000 printing errors! For Picus of Mirandura, published in Strasbourg in 1507, the errata given fills fifteen folios.Worse still was Mises Misals Anatomia (1561), a little book of 172 pages, of which 15 pages were devoted to errata.The author of this book, deeply wronged by this long list of errors, made a public statement, saying that this result was all because the devil himself stole his manuscript, falsified it, and then forced the printer to read it. wrong it.