h2g2 Literary Corner: The Art of the Typo
Created | Updated Dec 18, 2016
The problems of authors go way back.
The Art of the Typo
We ran across this gem of a book in the internet archive. It's called Out of the hurly-burly; or, Life in an odd corner, and it was published in 1874 by Charles Heber Clark. Clark (1841-1915) was a US funny writer who sometimes used the pseudonym Max Adeler. (Americans thought Germans were funnier back then.) Clark was very popular in his day, but is largely forgotten now. He and Mark Twain feuded – each accused the other of plagiarism, which is an occupational hazard with comedians. (They're like musicians that way.)
We definitely intend to read this book. For one thing, we intend to steal more of these delicious illustrations for the h2g2 Post. (The words 'Public Domain' are music to our ears.) But even better, the story is about New Castle, Delaware, and what a backwater it is. This sounds like a lark to anyone who's lived in nearby Philadelphia.
Here's the first page, complete with illustration showing Peter Menuit. They thought Swedes were funny back then, too.
What we thought was really funny, though, was Clark's dedication. So we're quoting it here. For those who are unfamiliar with ancient history, a 'compositor' is a typesetter. That's what you had to do for publishing hardcopy in the days before computers. Compositors were humans, and they didn't come with built-in spellcheckers. However, they had their own form of 'autocomplete'. Enjoy.
I have resolved to dedicate this book to a humorist who has had too little fame, to the most delicious, because the most unconscious, humorist, to that widely-scattered and multitudinous comedian who may be expressed in the concrete as to his habit of perpetrating felicitous absurdities I am indebted for "laughter that is worth a hundred groans." It was he who put into type an article of mine which contained the remark, "Filtration is sometimes accomplished with the assistance of albumen," and trans formed it into "Flirtation is sometimes accomplished with the resistance of aldermen." It was he who caused me to misquote the poet’s inquiry, so that I propounded to the world the appalling conundrum, "Where are the dead, the varnished dead?" And it was his glorious tendency to make the sublime convulsively ridiculous that rejected the line in a poem of mine, which declared that a "comet swept o’er the heavens with its trailing skirt," and substituted the idea that a "count slept in the haymow in a traveling shirt." The kind of talent that is here displayed deserves profound reverence. It is wonderful and awful and thus I offer it a token of my marveling respect.
