Printer's Error: Irreverent Stories of Books History

Delve into the curious history of print and publishing—from the Gutenberg Bible and Shakespeare’s folios to rare book forgers, literary scandals, and more.

The printing press is one history’s greatest achievements. It allowed us to record and spread some of humanity’s most brilliant ideas. But let’s not forget that humankind is also full of idiots. In Printer’s Error, historian J.P. Romney and rare book specialist Rebecca Romney take readers on a rollicking ride through some of the greatest and strangest moments in book history.

Readers will meet intriguing characters such as Marino Massimo De Caro, the Italian librarian and master book thief; bookbinder Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, who created the world’s most beautiful typeface—then plotted to destroy it; and William Tyndale, who made the Holy Bible accessible to countless worshippers—and was also burned at the stake for heresy.

The Romneys scoured five hundred years of book history and collected some of its most absurd episodes. And then like so many humans before them, they wrote a book about it.