Errata (not ours)

Beinecke Library

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Beinecke Library

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“These are not misprints, but beauties of my style hitherto undreamt of,” wrote James Joyce, shortly after publication of the first edition of Ulysses—the second edition included seven pages of corrections (including corrections of corrections made by overly diligent fact checkers). “Errata are paratextual; they are subsequent to the text but nonetheless an important component of the publication overall,” says Rachel Churner, cocurator of an exhibit on misprints on view in the Hanke Exhibition Gallery of Sterling Memorial Library. The exhibit, “Beauties of My Style”: Errata & the Printed Mistake, runs through November 29; it includes 39 artifacts from the last 500 years, mostly found in the collections of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 

The “Wicked Bible” of 1631 included a misprint in the seventh commandment, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” In Yale’s copy,  someone helpfully wrote the word “not” by hand above it, between “shalt” and “commit” (above). And a 1588 nautical atlas on display includes an “Author’s Admonition to the Reader” with a disclaimer about the “vagaries” of the sea getting in the way of accuracy. Cocurator Geoff Kaplan, a lecturer in graphic design, sees the misprints as a mark of humanity. “Mistakes humans make are so warm,” says Kaplan. “It is sharing that a human is present.”