Thomas Hardy's latest book
Jul. 17th, 2006 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI have blogged before - I think - about my small but immaculate collection of books with misprints on their covers. Mostly, it's a case of letters gone astray - "The Sweeny", or Ford Maddox Ford, like that. It really has to be in the title, though, or on the spine; I'm not that excited by simple literals in the back-cover copy, eg.
So why have I just paid good money, full price yet, for a book whose back cover asserts that Stoker's The Jewel of the Seven Stars is "generallty regarded" as his best work after Dracula? Because that's just the smear on the icing on the cake, is why. I bought it for the spine.
Return from the Dead, it says. By Thomas Hardy.
Um, you say. Wait a minute, you say; Thomas Hardy never wrote a book called Return from the Dead, you say. And what's all this about Stoker...?
What it is, it's a book of mummy stories, edited by my good friend David Stuart Davies and published by Wordsworth Editions. Featuring Stoker, Doyle, Poe, Webb. Doyle again. No Thomas Hardy at all, revenant or otherwise.
It's just the spine that makes this unaccountable, alternate-universe assertion.
How could I not buy it?
So why have I just paid good money, full price yet, for a book whose back cover asserts that Stoker's The Jewel of the Seven Stars is "generallty regarded" as his best work after Dracula? Because that's just the smear on the icing on the cake, is why. I bought it for the spine.
Return from the Dead, it says. By Thomas Hardy.
Um, you say. Wait a minute, you say; Thomas Hardy never wrote a book called Return from the Dead, you say. And what's all this about Stoker...?
What it is, it's a book of mummy stories, edited by my good friend David Stuart Davies and published by Wordsworth Editions. Featuring Stoker, Doyle, Poe, Webb. Doyle again. No Thomas Hardy at all, revenant or otherwise.
It's just the spine that makes this unaccountable, alternate-universe assertion.
How could I not buy it?
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 12:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 12:22 pm (UTC):-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:10 pm (UTC)(a) working out how to post pix to LJ (not difficult, I'm sure, but I think I tried it one time and failed, so it may just be too difficult for me); and
(b) locating said texts amid the 'straordinary chaos that is my house. That was my house, even before I imported a mad bad cat who believes entirely in the redistribution of objects, mostly books and mostly in a downward direction. My shelves are bare, my floors are crowded; any particular book could be any particular where...
If I can achieve (b), I will pursue (a) - but don't hold your breath.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 04:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 11:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 06:12 am (UTC)(Would also quite like to know how this can actually happen, how people can not proofread titles of books they presumably want to sell, but ah, the ways of publishers are mysterious to me...)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 07:54 pm (UTC)It's surprisingly easy to miss this sort of mistake. Cover proofs are supposed to get looked at by the editorial and production staff, but sometimes if they're rushed the art people will redesign them, or they'll get a quick read or get lost in the shuffle, or...and big type is often hard to spot errors in, oddly enough; I could explain why that is, but I'll spare you.
More subtle errors can easily slip through: the person who reads the cover doesn't necessarily have any knowledge of the text. In fact, since covers are produced before insides, the text may not even exist in final form when the cover is done. Errors such as spelling the main character's name incorrectly are hard to spot if you haven't read the text...