THE CORRECTOR OF THE PRESS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF PRINTING DOUGLAS C. McMURTRIE II I I I 1 '■'■» "■ "^' ■ - *— ■ *-» ™ EXJJBRK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOKNIA £3/ (Cfil JOHN HENRY NASH LIBRARY <$> SAN FRANCISCO <$> PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ROBERT GORDON SPROUL, PRESIDENT. <$> BY" • Mr.andMrs.MILTON S.RAY CECILY, VIRGINIA andROSALYN RAY AND THE RAY OIL BURNERGDMPANY SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK- THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF GRAPHIC ARTS ART CENTER f 65 EAST 56TH STREET t NEW YORK CITY Dear Member of the Institute: The American Institute of Graphic Arts, through the Committee on Publishing, takes pleasure in presenting to its members as the fifth item in the series of keepsakes, a book written by one of its members, Douglas C. McMurtrie. It is presented by the Conde Nast Press, Inc., of Greenwich, Connecticut. Not only is the subject, The Corrector of the Press in the Early Days of Printing, one of interest, but the volume itself is an excellent speci- men of printing and binding. At the request of the Committee, Mr. McMurtrie has autographed each copy. As these keepsakes are valuable and scarce (most of them, as in this case, being published in limited edition especially for members of the Institute) it is hoped that members have planned to keep their collection of keepsakes complete. Committee on Publishing Edmund G. Gress, Chairman December i 3 1922 THE CORRECTOR OF THE PRESS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF PRINTING Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/correctorofpressOOmcmurich THE CORRECTOR OF THE PRESS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF PRINTING BY DOUGLAS C. McMURTRIE PREPARED FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF GRAPHIC ARTS CONDE NAST PRESS GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT M CM XXII OF THIS EDITION THERE HAVE BEEN PRINTED AT THE CONDE NAST PRESS AT GREENWICH, CONN., IN SEPTEMBER, ig22 t FOUR HUNDRED COPIES, OF WHICH THIS IS NUMBER Q^( 1 i^Ja^^A^A^^^^ THE CORRECTOR OF THE PRESS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF PRINTING The function of the proofreader — so often praised and so often damned — dates almost from the beginning of printing. At first the printers, who were men of no little education themselves, revised their own proofs. Soon after the inven- tion of typography, however, the responsibility for textual accuracy was specifically assigned to an individual who was in no way concerned with the more mechanical processes of type-setting and presswork and who manifestly did not give his whole time to the work. In the fifteenth century offices the proofreader was invariably a scholar of real attainments, who usually com- bined the role of textual editor with that of corrector of the press. The accomplishments of some of these readers are recorded in the colophons of many incunabula. I have ex- amined in some detail the evidence of this character occur- ring in volumes printed in Paris during the fifteenth century and similar evidence can be found in the colophons of early volumes printed elsewhere. As there was no early literature concerning printing itself, there was likewise no literature regarding the second- ary typographic function of proofreading. The earliest known volume on the subject is a treatise in Latin by Jerome Hornschuch, a doctor of medicine, who was a cor- rector in the Beyer printing office at Meiningen. He took his responsibilities seriously, but soon— as have many readers of the present day— realized that many of the difficulties in handling proofs are due, not to carelessness of compositors, [ 5 ] but to defects in the original copy furnished by authors. With a view to possible improvement in the exactitude of manuscripts destined for the printer he prepared a manual of instructions for authors entitled OpOoxuuoypacpia,?, sive Instructionis et Adtnonitionis ad scripta sua in lucem edi- turosy et operas typographicas correcturos, which was pub- lished at Leipzig (Lipsiae, apud Michaelem Lanzenbergum) in 1608. During the course of this treatise Hornschuch deals to a considerable extent with the qualifications of the proof- reader. The following passage, translated from the Latin of the original, is of particular interest. " He who purposes to become a corrector of the press should have full knowledge of the languages in which are to be printed the works which he is to read. He should also have considerable facility in deciphering the handwrit- ing of the learned, which is often extremely bad. One of their greatest faults is defective formation of letters, which they seek to excuse by quotation of the adage : ■ Who says savant, says bad handwriting,' as if erudition could not be acquired except at complete sacrifice of proficience in cal- ligraphy. And there are frequently to be seen in printing offices manuscripts which a hundred eyes would not suffice to decipher. It is thus unjust to visit upon the printers blame which is properly chargeable to authors. Too often, it is the savants themselves are responsible for inaccurate texts. "The proofreader should scrupulously avoid giving himself over to choler, to love, to sadness, or indeed yield- ing to any of the lively emotions. It will readily be under- stood that preoccupation and agitation of spirit are likely to give rise to a multitude of errors. Especially should he shun drunkenness, for is there an individual with vision more deranged, or of greater degree of stupidity, than the idiotic corrector who transforms Ranam into Dianam and Dianam [ 6 ] into Ranam? Men of this type should be driven out of printing offices, for it is out of the question to give them anything to do with the making of a book, the reputation of which often rests not less on accurate or defective typo- graphic execution than on the text itself or the author." After some comment on the editorial functions which were performed in the early days by correctors of the press, Hornschuch continues: "A conscientious corrector should sedulously avoid drawing upon himself, because of pique or wounded vanity, the dissatisfaction of the author. Never should he make changes in the text, even though he believes it can be im- proved thereby. He should aim always to maintain with the author relations of cordial and intelligent cooperation. Mutual antagonism can result most disastrously to the repu- tations alike of the author, of the publisher, and even of the corrector himself, should some serious misprint be deliber- ately contrived, as in the instance described by Erasmus." The favorite method of wreaking personal vengeance in the printing offices of the early days was to change the spelling of a Latin word so as to change a serious and dig- nified statement into an expression the sense of which was obscene. Such was the incident recounted by Erasmus, to which reference was made. Perversion of statements of principle in works of a religious character was also a cause for apprehension, as will be evident from the following para- graph, which will be my last quotation from Hornschuch. "The printer should be extremely careful not only in the choice of persons to serve as proofreaders, but also in the employment of compositors of religious beliefs differing from our own, such as Calvinists and others. He should refuse to employ wandering men, foreigners who, after having committed some grievous error, can easily disappear [ 7 ] and return to their own country. A corrector of ill intent was flogged and driven in shame from the episcopate of Wiirzburg for having omitted the letter w from one word, thus occasioning an obscene expression." The next publication in chronological order, making reference to proofreading, was Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, which appeared in London in 1683. This work is the earliest treatise in English on the technical aspects of the printing art. The qualifications which the author names as essential for the proofreader are so numerous as to be amus- ing. The British corrector of the period either must have been a superman or must have fallen far short of Moxon's standards. The following paragraphs are of most interest. "A Correcter should (besides the English Tongue) be well skilled in languages, especially in those that are used to be Printed with us, viz. the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriack, Caldae, French, Spanish, Italian, High Dutch, Saxon, Low Dutch, Welch, &c. neither ought my innumerating only these be a stint to his skill in the number of them, for many times several other Languages may happen to be Printed, of which the Author has perhaps no more skill than the bare knowledge of the Words and their Pronun- ciations, so that the Orthography (if the Correcter have no knowledge of the Language) may not only be false to its Native Pronunciation, but the Words altered into other Words by a little wrong Spelling, and consequently the Sense made ridiculous, the purpose of it controvertible, and the meaning of the Author irretrievably lost to all that shall read it in After times. " He ought to be very knowing in Derivations and Ety- mologies of Words, very sagacious in Pointing, skilful in the Compositers whole Task and Obligation, and endowed with a quick Eye to espy the smallest Fault." [ « ] The document next to be considered is an early volume of ample bulk devoted entirely to the subject of proofreading. It is really an historical chronicle of eminent proofreaders and their work, and is a veritable mine of information. The author is Johann Conrad Zeltner; the title of the volume : Correctorum in typographiis eruditorum centuria speciminis loco collocata. It was published at Number g in 171 6. The work was reissued in 1720 with a new title page and a sixteen-page life of Zeltner added at the end. The sheets of the volume proper, however, are the same as ap- peared in the original issue. The new title read : Theatrum virorum eruditorum qui speciatim typographis laudabilem operant praestiterunt. But in spite of this change of title it was really the same book. It would seem that it was not a best-seller of the day. The biographies in detail are not of particular interest. In the course of one of them, however, we get light on a little-known feature of medieval printing office practice. In some offices it was the custom to read aloud to the com- positor the copy supplied by the authors, the type therefore being set from dictation instead of from manuscript copy placed on a small stand, attached to the case, and known as the visorium. The copy reader would read successively to three or four compositors passages from an equal number of manuscripts. Zeltner expresses preference for this ancient method as being quicker and involving fewer errors. Under this system the compositors must necessarily have been educated men, familiar with Latin and Greek, the two languages in which a large proportion of the print- ing of the early sixteenth century was done. The impos- sibility of finding increasing numbers of compositors with the requisite learning soon necessitated the abandonment of the system. Evidences of its operation can be found in [ 9 ] some early Greek editions where the incorrect spelling of words follows the pronunciation of the copy reader. We find that Henricus Pantaleon, who later became a corrector for Froben, performed the function of copy reader in the printing office of Isingrin at Basel. It will not be possible to discuss the relative merits of all the early printers with reference to proofreading. The names of several stand out as having given particular care to the accuracy of their editions : Aldus, Froben, Robert Estienne, and Plantin. At the Aldine press there was an academy of learned men who served in the joint role of editors and correctors. Among them were Demetrius Chalcondylas, Janus Lascaris, Marc Musure, Benedictus Tyrrhenus, and Pietro Alcinio. At the press of Froben at Basel was a similar company, headed during one period by Erasmus who, in many ways, was the most eminent scholar of his day. Here we encounter the names of Sigismundus Gelenius, Marc Heiland, and Henricus Pantaleon. In a letter from Erasmus to Froben occurs this tribute : "The reputation of your printing office is such that a book need only be known to have been produced there to make it eagerly sought after by savants." In the typographic family of Robert Estienne it is said that Latin only was spoken. Numbered among his editors were Lud. Strebaeus, Gerard Leclerc, Adam Nodius, Andre Guntterus, and his favorite who did important work on the editions of the Bible, Guillaume Fabritius. Christopher Plantin, before he established his own printing office at Antwerp, worked as a corrector of the press at Lyons. At Antwerp he retained the services of many eminent scholars as editors and correctors; among them were Francois Hardouin, Victor Geselin, Theodore Pulman, Antoine Gheesdal, Juste Lipse, Cornells Kiliaan rip'] and Francois Raphelenge. It is related of the latter that he came for a visit to the Plantin press, and found such enjoy- ment there in reading proofs, that he stayed on, in spite of the fact that he was expected at Cambridge, where he was to serve as professor of Greek in the University. To the memory of Cornelis Kiliaan, a distinguished philologist who read proof in the Plantin establishment for many years, a monument was later erected in his native town of Duffel. This was destroyed by the invader, but at the instance of the committee arranging the celebration of the fourth centenary of Plantin's birth, a new monument was erected, and dedicated on August 29, 1920. Kiliaan wrote in Latin verse the following defense of correctors against unjust attack by authors, quoted by Chevillier from the Theatrum Vitae humanae by Laurent Beyerlinch. CORRECTOR TYPOGRAPHICUS Officii est nostri mendosa errata Librorum Corrigere, atque suis prava notare locis. Ast quern scribendi cacoethes vexat s ineptus Ardelio vitiis barbarieque rudis, Plurima conglomerat, distinguit pauca, lituris De 'format chart as ^ scriptaque commaculat. Non annum premit in nonum, non expolit arte; Sed vulgat properis somnia vana typis. tyuce postquam Docti Musis & Apolline nullo Composita exclamant y ringitur Ardelio; Et quacunque potest sese ratione tuetur, Dum Correctorem carpit agitque reum. Heusf cess a immeritum culpam trans ferre deinceps In Correctorem Barde Typographicum. Hie quod est rectum non depravavit. At audin? Posthac lambe tuos> Ardelio Catulos. Errata alterius quiquis correxerit, ilium Plus satis invidice, gloria nulla manet. [»] This metrical apologium on behalf of the corrector may be translated line for line as follows : THE PROOFREADER Our task it is the glaring errors of books E'en to set right, and in their places faults to mark. But he whom writing itch harasses, silly fool, And busy-body with his vices, and barbarously crude Confuseth much, distinguisheth few. With erasures Disfigures his leaves, his writings doth smear o'er. Not till the ninth yearf doth he hide, nor smooths with art, But spreads abroad his vain dreams upon the speedy types. Let but the skilled cry out that with no touch of the Muses and Apollo Is all his stuff composed, the rascal snarls; In whate'er way he can doth fend himself, The while he snaps at the proofreader, and makes him all to blame. Holloa, sirrah! Cease the blame to shift in turn Upon the innocent proofreader, you stupid dolt. What is full right not he hath fouled. D'ye hear? Henceforth, smart jack, lick your own cubs. Another's errors whoe'er sets right, for him More than enough of envy, glory none, doth wait. Proofreading came in for its share of attention in a number of the royal decrees regulating early printing and publishing in France. The history of this regulation has been excellently outlined by G.-A. Crapelet, in his Etudes pratiques et litter aires sur la Typographie, a most charming volume published in Paris in 1837. His data on this subject will be briefly summarized. The regulation promulgated by Francois I in 1539, for the control of printing in Paris, in Article 17 made the fol- t This refers to the Maxim of Horace to the effect that any composition by an author should be hidden "till the ninth year." [12] lowing provision: "If the master printers producing books in Latin are not learned enough themselves to correct the books which they print, they are required to employ capa- ble correctors, under penalty of arbitrary fine. These cor- rectors must correct the books with care and diligence, making their revisions in accord with classic standards, and in all respects do their duty. Otherwise they will be held liable for damages incurred through errors for which they are to blame." This regulation was continued in force by the successors to Francois I, and was promulgated anew by Charles IX in his edict of 157 1. In the year following, however, this Article 17, which had aroused so much opposition among the parties interested, gave way to a new provision which went far to lighten the burdens imposed on the correctors. In the declaration of September 10, 1572, explanatory of the edict of 157 1 relative to Article 17, is the following order: "The master printers shall deliver to compositors only copy which has been re- vised, edited, and put in proper form, to the end that the labor of typesetting shall not be slowed down by defective copy." It was thus incumbent on the master printers to enforce this regulation, demanding from authors copy meas- uring up to the standards stated. Had these provisions been rigorously enforced there would have ensued the greatest advantage to every one concerned. The Regulation of 1649 lamented the fall of printing in Paris from its former high estate, noting that no longer, as was the case in the century just passed, "did the most eminent and learned hold it an honor to serve the public in this occupation." Article 26 required booksellers to obtain a certificate of correction before placing on the market cer- tain books, such as catechisms, lives of the saints, missals, breviaries, and other ecclesiastical books. This certificate [13] would state that the volume contained no vital error which would pervert the meaning and intent of the church. In the year 1637, a professor of medicine by name Chartier, desiring to publish in Greek and Latin a complete edition of the works of Hippocrates, could find in all Paris no corrector competent to read the proofs, so he was forced to enlist the services of several of his learned friends to per- form the arduous and exacting task. He suggested that the following regulations should be ordained. 1. That all printed books in which appeared a certain number of errors should be suppressed. 2. That no master printer who did not know Greek and Latin should engage in the trade. 3. That salaries of correctors should be gen- erous and that only the most capable should be employed. 4. That there should always be three correctors to read each proof in succession. It is sagely observed by Crapelet that the defect in all such regulations, either proposed or actual, is that they do not indicate just how and where a large number of highly expert correctors are to be obtained. The Regulation of 1649 embraced several provisions akin to those proposed by Chartier, but they were never enforced. Article 56 of the Code of Printing and Book- selling, promulgated in 1723, reads as follows: "Printers who cannot themselves attend to the correction of books shall employ capable correctors who must correct the books with care and diligence, revising the proofs in accordance with accepted standards. If through their fault, it is neces- sary to reprint sheets which had been given to them for correction, they will be reprinted at the expense of the cor- rectors concerned." This article 56 continued in force all the provisions of former regulations, but by reason of views advanced, which were judged to be valid, Article 2 of the Decree of Council of April 10, 1725, so modified it that it [14] became practically inoperative: "Printers will be required to exercise particular care that editions of books printed by them shall, in the future, be absolutely correct, insofar as this can be done." Finally, in 1731 there was issued a supplementary in- struction, confirmed by Decree of March 24, 1744, provid- ing that booksellers and printers who wished themselves to act as correctors of their editions could do so on condition that they be responsible for serious errors which were to be corrected by cancel sheets or otherwise before the books were issued. Authors could also act as correctors of their own books, "but in any case, whoever is assigned responsi- bility for the revision, whether bookseller, printer, or author, will be required to put, under the notice of approbation, his signed acknowledgment of correction." Crapelet tells of an eminent medical author who wrote him when returning his final proofs released for printing : " Commend me to your proofreaders. The correctors are the soul and prosperity of a printing office." "It is in fact impossible," continues Crapelet, "and to- day more so than ever, for a master printer, in addition to his general business responsibilities, to read proofs with that complete tranquillity of spirit essential to this type of work. Education, intelligence, good memory, taste, patience, ap- plication, love of the art, and especially the typographic eye constitute the minimum qualifications required in the cor- rector to whom is entrusted the proofreading of the office. For that matter, there are few printers of the present day who are capable of discharging the duties of a corrector." "Let us, therefore," he concludes, "honor and encour- age these useful men who, through their modest labors, make so essential a contribution to the reputation and the prosperity of French printing ! " [IS] Mi 7 Tb"^ J JfflL^.^w*^-*HF Jb -- «£* % *tti* ».* $*