Literary Blunders: A Chapter in the History of Human Error""

through the press by scholars such as the Alduses, Andreas, Bishop of Aleria, Campanus Perottus, the Stephenses, and others. It is said that the first book with a

ly one

hundred and seventy-two pages, entitled Miss ac Missalis Anatomia, 1561, which contains fifteen pages of errata. The author, feeling that such a gross case of blundering required some excuse or explanation, accounted for the mi

in 1608 he was forced to publish at Ingolstadt a volume entitled Recognitio librorum omni

ed On Religion and Learning, 1656, was forced

the Inquisition that the words fatum and fata should not be used in

any work, a ce

ny such helps to correction. This to some extent is to be accounted for by the fact that many of these plays were surreptitious publications, or, at all events, printed in a hurry, without care. The late Mr. Halliwell Phillipps, in his curious privately printed volume (A Dictionary of Misprints, 1887), writes: ``

e of the excuses made for misprints in our old books are very amusing. In a little English book of twenty-six leaves printed at Douay in 1582, and entitled A true repor

scaped in the printing and beare wi

were falsely ascribed to him. The Bower of Delights was published without the author's sanction, and the printer (or publis

re you happen to find fault, impute it to bee committed by the Printers negligence, then (otherwise) by any ignorance in the author: and especially in A 3, about the middest of the page, for LIME OR LEAD I pray you re

ll Instrument called a Sector . . . by Thomas Hood, 1598, has a list of

e by experience, that it is an harder matter to print these mat

or the Geodeticall Staffe (1610), contains the follo

nter to t

past or faults

ection give c

, the grounds

, thoughe all our

letters, doe con

alt, yet doe n

e, such faults

ion makes ame

besides drawing attention to the printer's dislike of his errors being called attention to in a table of errata, is singularly valuable fo

ality had beene of the same nature and condition, and finding you, on the contrary, so carefull and industrious, so serious and laborious to doe the author all the rights of the presse, I could not choose but gratulate your honest indeavours with this short remembrance. Here, likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest injury done me in that worke, by taking the two epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a lesse volume under the name of another, which may put the world in opinion I might steale

ed in their sins, and seldom made excuses for the errors of the

an, in his Ho

alling Uni

peculative an

comes befor

remarks on

end with thy pen, and if there

be any errour in art, as in chap. 17 which is only true at the time of the Equinoctiall, take that for an oversight, and where thou findest

s on several important subjects in Philosophy

rs of the Press, some of which are so near in sound, to the w

of Charles II.'s notorious mistress, the Countess of Castlemaine. Fortunately for the Earl she no longer bore his name, as she was created Duchess of Cleveland in 1670. Professor

graphical part of this Globe,'' prefixed to The

cate, but that any man may (I hope) easily mend them in the reading. I confess I have bin in a manner the occasion of them, by taking from the noble author a very foul copy, when he desir'd me to stay till a fair one were written

n the

subject of misprints in the preface to his Vade Mecum,

ination of them; which in all books ought to be done, especially in these, for as much as one false figure in a Mathematical book, may prove a greater fault than a whole word mistake in books of another kind. Or, 2 Because Persons take Tables upon trust without trying them, and with them transcribe their errors, if not increase them. Both these I have carefully avoided, so that

ted 1756, in his Arithmetical Books, and he did not apparen

following amusing note: ``There is no cut of the Hen of the lesser Py'd Brambling in Tab. 13 tho' 'tis referred to in p. 423 which omission was owing t

sor De Morgan, with his usual sagacity, alludes to this point in his Arithmetical Books (1847): ``A great many circumstances induce me to think that the general fashion of correcting the press by the author came

it is possible to antedate the practice by nearly forty years. For several of the following quotations

ction of the same, and especiallie of the Figures and Portratures conteyned therein, whereof he delivered unto me such notes as

omme of Do

scoigne (

nt of the Prynte

e apoynted a seruaunt of his to ouersee the same. Who being not so well acquainted with the matter as his maister was, there haue passed some faultes much contrary unto both our meanings and des

Translation of Virgil's neid (1582),

which was printed at Leyden. Mr. F. C. Birk

nting: and in correcting as wel such as are layd downe heere too thy view, as all oother whereat thou shalt hap too stumble in perusing this treatise.

proofs, but it would not have been necessary to make an excu

s Prayer (1588) contains an excuse for the

rfect sence (Gentle Reader) helpe them by thine

owne judgement and excuse th

Ecclesiastical Polity (1597), with Whitgift's signature and corrections in Ho

eaf that followeth this, for I know not by what mischance this of

Queries, 7th S

ractice will be found in N. Br

on, and excuse the Author by other worke that let him from at

is

interesting statement: ``Apply it for me for I am called away to corre

Divell (1615), made an excuse for not having seen all th

the E

le, what I was to indure by the presse. Yet know judicious disposed gentlemen, that the intricacie of the copie, and the absence of the author from many important proofes were occasion of these errors, which defects (if they bee supplied by your generous convenience and curtuous disposition) I doe vowe to

satisfie your affectionate

de Dogge, Epigrams and Satyres (1615), an

are to be excused by reason of the authors absence from the

Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour (act. ii., sc. 3), where Lorenzo, junior, says, ``My father had the proving of your

copy, some houre before I saw it.'' The second is from Fletcher's The Nice

says my Pr

's your las

rfect Books now i

Queries, 7th Se

el Featley for not having corrected the proofs of his book The Rom

n that the Thames was shut up, I could not conveniently procure the proofs to be brought unto mee, before they were wrought off; whereupon

we find this note: ``Reader, By reason of the author's absence, several faults have escaped t

n author stalking up and down his room and tearing his hair when he first discovers them; but Benserade, the French poet, was

rmi des fautes

s que deux con

fais ma d

eprise et l'

fautes irr<

ce vo

any work ever issued from the press. The story is well known of the serious attempt made by the celebrated Glasgow printers Foulis to free their edition of Horace from any chance of error. They caused the proof-sheets af

uncorrected error was discovered in some copies, occasioned by the misplacing of one of the letters in the word Lusitano. A like case occurred a few years ago at an eminent London printer's. A certain book was about to b

neglected in subsequent books. There are many books in which the same blunders have b