Tag: errors

Take a gander at this book I was looking at today: Boyer’s The compleat French-master, 1699, Folger Shakespeare Library, Call Number: 263- 520q Can you see what’s going on here? It looks at first glance like the top page has been folded back, revealing the text of the previous leaf. But that’s not it. You’re looking at the verso side of sig. H4 and nothing else. Can you see now that it’s only one leaf? Here’s an image of what this leaf looks like in other copies of this book:   And now do you see what’s happened? During printing, this leaf got folded over in the press, and the inside of the fold missed the type (that’s the blank streak) and the outer part of the fold was, once unfolded, misaligned. Print the image off and fold it to see for yourself! Here’s the recto side of the leaf:…

Last year, at the start of each semester, I gave you something from a school book to celebrate the return of classes: in the fall it was Lily’s Latin grammar; in the spring, Comenius’s picture book. This semester, I think I’ll give you something slightly different to celebrate the return of students: a look at some of the books my students worked with last spring. First up, this 1557 English book of hours: The student who was working on this book was a theology major and chose it, I think, to have a chance to think about Catholic liturgy and print. There’s a lot to be learned about liturgy in studying it. The title of the book signals some of the basic issues at play: The primer in Englishe and Latine, set out along, after the use of Sa[rum]: with many godlie and devoute praiers: as it apeareth in the…