typos in MS (1 Viewer)

SamDusky

Founding member
I don?t know if anyone else gives a ham-sandwich, but I?m reading ?the night torn mad w/ footsteps? (a little at a time, in-between) & I have found 2 typos so far (it?s ecco; HarperCollins Imprint, of course) & I was wondering if anyone had seen the originals; possibilities:

1) Buk made the typo & they left them in;
2) The typesetter made the typo & the editor(s) missed them;
3) Buk meant them to be wrong (I doubt it).

Anyhow, Black Sparrow seemed to have better proofing than ecco. In poetry-prose, it?s harder to find errors, admittedly, but I don?t think these were meant to be so. Anyone with originals (jpg, etc.) or other printings, help is appreciated. thanks,

SamDusky

errors in []

"the pro"
p. 175
10th line: even though[t] she didn't want to lay her
favors on a man almost twice her
age.

"divorce"
p. 211
10th line: 'let's get the hell [our] out
of here,' he said.
 
the night torn mad with footsteps is originally Black Sparrow though...I'm not sure how they could introduce typos in a reprint. But I'll check the BS edition when I'm at home to see.

Overall you're right though...I don't recall too many glaring errors in the BS books.
 
there are quite a few typos in the BSP editions. when I was in the States I used to email Martin with all the typos I found as I was the reading B's books. I do remember there are at least 5-6 in Ham on Rye. Martin seemed not to know this at the time.
but as I said in another post, there are REPEATED POEMS in the most recent publications. Martin didn't know that, either. I remember him waiving his hand and saying: "those are just slips", like he didn't care too much.
 
mjp said:
the night torn mad with footsteps is originally Black Sparrow though...I'm not sure how they could introduce typos in a reprint. But I'll check the BS edition when I'm at home to see.

Overall you're right though...I don't recall too many glaring errors in the BS books.

Thank you, I appreciate that. One never knows where the errors creep in from, especially from as radical a source as Buk. By the by, I like your forum format. The gray suits Buk's temperament to a T (no pun int.).

SamDusky
 
I figured Martin was repeating on purpose, but after all those years and all those poems, maybe he just didn't notice or care. Earlier on Bukowski milked his better poems for all they were worth, and some show up in half a dozen different books and publications.

Those errors, by the way, are in the first BS editions, and I assume subsequent printings, since they traveled over to Ecco.
 
as I said, Martin seemed NOT to be aware of the typos. When I told him about the typos and the repeated poems, he seemd genuinely surprised, like he didn't know that.
what is beyond me is why he didn't have somebody checking whether the new poems were already printed or not. you just need a database and a few minutes to make the required searches!
 
They may not have had a database...he was pretty old school.

If BS did have a database, I'd like to get my hands on it. ;)
 
I wonder if ecco would be responsive to corrections from the readership (it would be to their benefit, and they'd be getting their job done for free. They should read this forum)? I just consider errors made human, but errors not corrected stupid. And in Buk's work, with him not here to defend himself, it's like getting the King James Version with typos in it (OK, maybe not that bad, but close). Thanks for the info on BS, and why the hell didn't they catch it on the transfer (I won't ask)? It's just annoying. I'll publish others, and hope their QC goes up.

SamDusky
 
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If you saw the covers of any of the early Ecco BS reprints, it looked like they'd just photographed the original book cover and reproduced it more cheaply. The first Ecco reprint I saw was a copy of Post Office, and it just looked awful. I can only assume they're doing a better job now that they have some of their own Bukowski titles out there. But the first ones looked like real half assed rush jobs. I suspect the text was just taken as-is from BS - probably in computerized form - and sent to the press.
 
i wrote ecco @typos

line 13 in
sometimes even putting a nickel into a parking meter feels good--

from p.297 of what matters most...

will ill-fitting dentures (should be WITH ill-fitting dentures)

i'll never forget this poem because i first heard it read on NPR.
can't remember if they read it as printed in 1st edition or not.

i wrote ecco after seeing they printed replica of bsp edition and they
never wrote back.
o well -- i will never forget the 1st edition of a hard copy of
Sifting through the madness ...with ecco stamp in front instead of
bsp print in back listing the # of hard copies etc...

but it is what martin deserved


blah blah blah
 

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