Over the centuries, several have gone down in history typing errors became very famous, due to distractions, possible boycotts, setting defects of the printing machine.
From the Sinners’ Bible, where it is advised to commit adultery rather than avoid it; passing through “Dord”, a non-existent word which however has been in the dictionary for thirteen years; the “inverted Jenny” stamp with an upside-down plane; a pasta recipe book that requires you to grind people, rather than pepper; up to the first edition of Harry Potter, with typing errors that make it very precious.
1. The “Sinners’ Bible”
In the 1631in England, the printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas they printed a thousand copies of the King James Bible – version of the Bible commissioned by the sovereign in 1611 – with a sensational printing error: when the ten commandments are listed, in the text of the seventh the word “not” is omitted. The text of the commandment, from “do not commit adultery” therefore becomes “commit adultery”.
Thou shalt note commit adultery – Thou shalt commit adultery
The Bible immediately earned the reputation of “WickedBible“, literally “Damn Bible”, later known as the “Sinners’ Bible” or the “Bad Bible”.
The printers Barker and Lucas they came tried, found guilty and finedand their license was revoked. The copies of the “wrong” Bible were traced almost all – but not all! – And destroyed. To date, the available sources support the existence of approximately one ten copies of the “Bad Bible”, including one in the Public Library in London, one in the Museum of the Bible in Washington and at least two other copies auctioned by Bonhams and Sotheby’s, selling for several tens of thousands of dollars.
As to why such a glaring error occurred, several possibilities are being considered: perhaps a careless error, perhaps a boycott by a rival printer.
2. “Dord”, the word that doesn’t exist but has been in the English dictionary
The famous Merriam Webster’s American dictionaryfirst published in 1934is the protagonist of another curious story relating to a printing error. In the first edition of the dictionary, in fact, the word “appears”Dord”, indicated as an abbreviation synonymous with “Density”, in Italian “density”. “Dord” began to be used as a word, until in 1947 it was realized that it didn’t actually exist and didn’t mean anything.
In fact, the compilers of the dictionary, having arrived at the word “Density”, indicated the initial letter as an abbreviation, writing “D. or d.“: this combination was interpreted as a single word, and thus the term “Dord” was born. After 13 years of curious use, today “Dord” remains as a “ghost word” and is no longer used,
3. The very precious misprinted stamp “inverted Jenny”
One of the most famous – and precious! – printing errors! – does not concern a book but a stamp: the so-called “inverted Jenny”, the “inverted Jenny”. In 1918, in the United States, a stamp was issued depicting a Curtiss JN-4 biplanenicknamed “Jenny” at the time. At the time of printing, in a single sheet containing 100 stamps, the image of the “Jenny” was inverted with respect to the framewith the wheels up and the cabin of the plane facing down. 100 stamps were then printed with the biplane inverted, which made them immediately famous and highly sought after and, for this reason, very precious. One of the copies is kept at the Smithsonian in Washington, many others belong to private collectors: it is estimated that the value of each of these stamps is between one million and two million dollars, a value which is also reached by the Penny Black, the first stamp in history.
4. The first edition of Harry Potter
The starting price – 250 thousand pounds – with which Christie’s offered a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stonethe first book in the JK Rowling saga.
The copy, published by the English publishing house Bloomsbury in 1997is considered very precious because they exist only two hundred copiesgiven the limited edition that the publishing house decided on, not suspecting the success that the novel would have. This edition contains two typos which make it unique: on the back cover – i.e. the back of the book – it says “philospher’s” instead of “philosopher’s” and, on page 53, in the list of materials to bring to Hogwarts school of magic the word “bacchetta” is repeated twice, “wand”.
5. “Black people” instead of “black pepper” in a pasta cookbook
The publisher Penguin Australia, the Australian branch of what is now the Penguin Random House publishing house, was the protagonist of a decidedly embarrassing typo, which cost the destruction of 7,000 copies of The Pasta Biblea cooking recipe book focused on pasta.
In the recipe for tagliatelle with sardines and ham, it says that you need “freshly ground black people“, literally: “fresh ground black people”. The correct text, clearly, should have been “freshly ground black pepper”, or “freshly ground black pepper”.
Penguin immediately apologized, explaining that the gesture was a mistake: it withdrew the copies from the market and declared itself willing to replace the copy of the book for anyone who felt offended. As often happens in these cases, the typo and the withdrawal of the copies from the market resulted increase the value of the surviving copies.
