Top 5 Most Famous Printing Mistakes

1. The Sinners Bible

Over the years there have been various translations and reprints of The Bible which have led to many printing errors, one such is the 1631 version printed by Barker and Lucas. It left out the “not” from Exodus 20:14, meaning the seventh commandment read as “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Apparently at the time the printers were fined £300 (that would be £30,000 today) and the offending copies were recalled.

2. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire and the mysterious reappearance

In the year 2000 nine year old Laila Banjar discovered a confusing mistake in J. K Rowling’s novel Harry Potter The Goblet of Fire. Writing to Bloomsbury, the printing house responsible she asked: “On page 503 in the ninth paragraph it says, ‘Dumbledore, come! said Crouch angrily’. As Crouch is missing how can he be speaking to Dumbledore? Please can you explain this and tell us if it is a mistake or what?” Bloomsbury wrote back and explained that the sentence should have described Cornelius Fudge calling to Professor Dumbledore and not Bartemius Crouch. The error appeared in Bloomsbury’s first print run of a million copies and can be used to identify true first editions.

3. The cannibal Pasta Bible

You wouldn’t expect something as innocuous as a pasta cookbook to contain anything offensive. However in 2010, Penguin Group Australia managed to make a recipe for tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto just that. One of the listed ingredients read as “salt and freshly ground black people”. The mistake meant that they had to reprint 7,000 copies of the book.

4. Banner Travel and the risqué yellow pages ad

In the 1980s Banner Travel, a Californian based travel business posted an ad in the American Yellow Pages for ‘Exotic Destinations’ however, it was printed as ‘Erotic Destinations’. Not quite the demographic the company were going for. They promptly sued the Yellow Pages and won $10 million.

5. Earnest Hemmingway – just stop.

A first edition Hemingway is worth thousands of pounds already to the right buyer, but if you ever come across a first edition of his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises check page 181, line 26. In some editions stop is printed as ‘stoppped’ and this small error can mean the book is worth thousands more.