The Importance of
the Proof-reader
The Importance of
the Proof-reader
A Paper read before the Club of Odd Volumes,
in Boston, by John Wilson
CAMBRIDGE
The University Press
JOHN WILSON & SON (Inc.)
1901
THIS Paper upon “The Importance of the Proof-reader” is presented withthe compliments of the University Press and the Author. The subject isone which the Author has endeavored to emphasize during his fifty years’service in the printing business, and one for which the University Presshas ever endeavored to stand.
1922
JOHN WILSON, author of this Paper and formerly proprietor of TheUniversity Press, died in 1903. His successors have now the pleasure ofmaking a reprint, believing the subject to be of as much interest todayas it was twenty years ago.
[7]The Importance of the Proof-reader
IN preparing a work for the press, the author, the compositor, and theproof-reader are the three factors that enter into its construction. Wewill, however, treat more especially of the last-named in connectionwith the first.
The true proof-reader should not only be a practical printer, but heshould be a lover of literature, familiar with the classics of alllanguages, with the results accomplished by science, and indeed withevery subject that concerns his fellow-men. When an author prepares awork for the press, he often uses many abbreviations, his capitalizationis frequently incorrect, his spelling occasionally not in accordanceeither with Worcester or Webster, his punctuation inaccurate, hishistorical and biographical statements careless, and his chirographyfrequently very bad. In such cases the proof-reader is sorely tried; andunless he is a man of much patience, well versed in the art ofdeciphering incorrigible manuscripts, and supplying all theirdeficiencies, his last state will, to speak mildly, be worse than hisfirst.
[8]It is said that, when Charles Dudley Warner was the editor of the“Hartford Press,” back in the “sixties,” arousing the patriotism of theState with his vigorous appeals, one of the type-setters came in fromthe composing-room, and, planting himself before the editor, said:“Well, Mr. Warner, I ’ve decided to enlist in the army.” With mingledsensations of pride and responsibility, Mr. Warner replied encouraginglythat he was glad to see the man felt the call of duty. “Oh, it is n’tthat,” said the truthful compositor, “but I ’d rather be shot than tryto set any more of your damned copy.”
As an example of what I mean by bad MS. I take the liberty of showingyou one page of a work which, unfortunately, I had agreed to print. Thisis a sample of one half of a work of 1000 MS. pages. When the authoroffered me, a few years later, another work similarly prepared, Ideclined, with thanks, to accept it.
Another illustration of careless writing I copy from “Harper’