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The Most Interesting Typos in Literature
From virtually the moment writing was invented, there have been typos, misprints, and other errors. Usually they’re either so subtle or so obvious they have effectively no impact on the meaning of the text, but sometimes they famously affect it. Think of the so-called Wicked Bible, published in 1631. The word “not” was missing from the 7th Commandment, rendering it as, “Thou shalt commit adultery,” which must have been slightly confusing to the faithful. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published in 1934, included an editor’s note to add the word “density” under “D” or “d,” which somehow turned into an entry for the word “Dord,” defined as “density.”
As in the five examples below, sometimes typos that alter meaning are either so subtle, fun, or intentional, they transcend mere error and become something more.
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Gentleman Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos
Loos’ 1925 novel started life as a series of comic short stories and was a huge hit, inspiring several adaptations, including a stage musical and a film starring Marilyn Monroe. Still a classic today, the book bubbles along on the strength of the incredible voice of its protagonist and narrator, Lorelei, whose vivacious, cheerful, and self-unaware inner monologue is riddled with malapropisms Loos renders verbatim, resulting in speech littered with intentional typos like “distants” for “distance” or “safires” for “sapphires.” The trick communicates Lorelei’s lack of sophistication while maintaining readability, and remains a unique and enjoyable approach to establishing a character’s voice today.
Moonraker by Ian Fleming
The first edition of the third James Bond novel, published in 1955, has a perfectly dumb typo on page 10: the letter “t” is missing from the word “shoot,” rendering it as “shoo.” It’s not a particularly remarkable typo, in that it’s obviously a mistake and doesn’t change the meaning of the text, but it has made the edition quite valuable, inflating the price of copies in good condition. While other typos are more interesting or valuable, Moonraker‘s remains one of the best-known examples in modern novels.
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The Vane Sisters, by Vladimir Nabokov
Not technically a typo, but a good story nonetheless. Nabokov’s short story was famously rejected by the New Yorker when first submitted, prompting Nabokov to write a letter explaining its final paragraph. The story is about a college professor thinking back on his relationship with two dead sisters, Cynthia and Sybil, and the love affairs he and a colleague had with each. After Sybil commits suicide, the narrator begins a relationship with Cynthia, who has a fascination with the occult and a belief that ghosts can influence the living in various ways, including inserting subconscious acrostics in their writing. The final paragraph is seemingly normal, if a bit tortured in its language—until you notice it is in fact an acrostic whose message changes the meaning and message of the story entirely.
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House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of intentional errors, Danielewski’s masterwork of horror and metafiction is littered with typos that hint at deeper meanings, including an index containing words that don’t actually appear in the text and omitting words that do. One instance is more famous than others: one of the narrators, Zampano, is discussing another character, Tom Navidson, and writes, “He might have spent all night drinking had exhaustion not caught up with me.” Far from a casual mistake made by the typesetter, the pronoun switch opens up a bottomless well of speculation that the character of Zampano is not only unreliable, but possibly nonexistent.
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Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Again, not a typo so much as an intentional typesetting error, the print versions of Cline’s 2012 hit have some damaged letters in the opening lines of the chapters (which are set in a different font from the rest of the text). The tiny dropouts are subtle and easy to miss, and indeed, no one seems to have noticed them until Cline announced a contest to win a DeLorean and hinted that the first step of the puzzle was hidden in the books. As it turns out, the damaged letters were a simple puzzle that led to a secret website. And yes, the DeLorean was real and someone won it!