酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

The Love Affairs Of A Bibliomaniac-Part9_Eugene Field(1850-1895)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页


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 ingeniousexplanation 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.



It was only last week,

In my ode upon spring,






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号