To all who value textual integrity: FOUNTAINHEAD badly compromised!

All who are interested in the textual integrity of Ayn Rand's work should note the following.

Between the time of the first edition of THE FOUNTAINHEAD and the 25th anniversary edition (hardcover), the text was reset and NOT PROOFREAD CAREFULLY ENOUGH. Some of the errors are quite serious, but they are not really typos and so are unlikely to be caught unless someone checks the later book against the earlier one, word by word. I only caught the ones listed at the end here because I had a good memory of how the original sounded, and several things seemed "off." (I should say that none of these differences between the 1943 and the 1968 version seem to be edits by Ayn Rand.) How many other mistakes would be caught by a meticulous comparison?

See the very end of this message for a list of the errors.

It is reasonable to assume that these errors will be carried forward into ALL FUTURE EDITIONS, since, due to modern electronic publishing, it is no longer necessary to reset text in order to change its format. (I would appreciate it if someone who has the latest versions of the paperback and hardback could confirm that the errors still stand. I'm pretty sure they do.)

I also wonder: Was ATLAS SHRUGGED ever reset? If so, how carefully was it proofread?

No one at ARI has replied to the following email, sent three times to various persons, which is why I have decided to "go public":

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I hope that you will pass this information along to whomever is responsible for preserving the textual integrity of Ayn Rand's THE FOUNTAINHEAD.

I have compiled a [...] list of typographical errors and missing words in the 25th anniversary edition of the novel. Reading that edition, several things did not seem right and so I checked them against the original edition of 1943. I'm pretty confident that none of them represent intentional changes between the two editions. I'm talking about missing punctuation, misspellings -- including of major characters' names -- plurals changed to singulars, and -- as I have said -- missing words.

Over time, an accumulation of such mistakes will inevitably lead to significant degradation of the text.

I wrote earlier about this, but did not receive any reply. I do not remember to whom I wrote, but if you will direct me to the appropriate person, I can send the list as an attachment.

... I only noticed these errors because I'm professional editor with a sharp eye, and because I had a good memory of certain passages from earlier editions; I wonder what a line-by-line comparison would have found. If an entire sentence, or even an entire paragraph, were missing, how many people would notice?

I would suggest that all new editions of Ayn Rand's works be spot-checked extremely carefully for signs of unannounced retyping. Formatters are supposed to tell you when they retype things, but from experience I know that they often do not. They are very confident of their own accuracy, or merely cannot be bothered.

Rodney Rawlings
416-960-0086
"Music, Melody, and Songs"
http://www3.sympatico.ca/rr.rawlings/home.frames.htm
Click to hear my RECONSTRUCTION ON GROUND ZERO:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/rr.rawlings/misc.sound/Reconstruction.on.Ground.Zero.mp3
Click to see my ANTHEM for concert band:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/rr.rawlings/misc/anthem/anthem.nov30.2003.pdf

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ERRORS IN THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF AYN RAND'S THE FOUNTAINHEAD (FOUND BY COMPARING WITH THE 1943 EDITION)

(Page numbers of the errors refer to the 25th anniversary edition)

MISSING WORDS

Page 134, the 1968 edition says "Don't mind saying it," but page 126, first edition, of 1943, has "Don't mind my saying it."

Page 426: "the effort of himself" on line 2. 1943 edition has "the effort he demanded of himself" on page 438.

WRONG WORDS

Page 219, 13th line from the bottom, "never know to be like this" should be "never known to be like this."

Page 242, a bit below the middle of the page, "Does he listen if others discuss any ... idea with him?" Should read "ideas." See 1943 edition page 253.

Page 322, the middle of the page, "Then the pact if off?" instead of the word "if" should be the word "is."

Page 435, the line "of course he had" should read "of course she had." See 1943 edition page 448.

Page 451, the line "Was the building worth the statue?" should read "Was the building worthy of the statue?"

SPELLING MISTAKES

Page 118, the word "advance" is misspelled.

Page 119, a bit below the middle of the page: the sentence "His mouth remained open a little, in astonishment." The word "astonishment" is misspelled.

Page 157 just below the middle of the page, "But you can't sit still," the first word is mistakenly spelled as "Buy."

Page 173, first line of 4th paragraph. The word "elevator" is the misspelled.

Page 187, the last full paragraph, the name "Dominique" is misspelled twice, with a missing letter.

Page 226, 16th line from the bottom, "man who looked as if he could break through the steel plate" the word "could" is misspelled.

Page 243, second paragraph from the bottom, "the edge of her eyelid," the word "her" is misspelled.

Page 251, a bit below the middle of the page, the word "perspective" is misspelled.

Page 282, the paragraph that begins "Tea parties" -- in the sentence "I thought that was tops," the word "thought" is misspelled.

Page 318, just about that the middle of the page, the word "straight" is misspelled.

Page 331, first paragraph after section break, on the second line the word "originality" is misspelled.

Page 338, at the middle of the page, "Mallory saw Roark's hand begin to shake." The word "begin" is misspelled.

MINOR TYPOS

Page 193, there is a double space after the word "if."

Page 389, "Good morning, Peter" lacks a period at the end.

Page 473, on line 3, there's too much space before the word "like."

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The preservation of THE FOUNTAINHEAD as written is very important to me, and so I am going to send this to as many Objectivist message boards as I can find. SOLO is the first (even though I said in an earlier private email to SOLO that I would not post here any more).

Rodney Rawlings

Post 1

Monday, February 2, 2004 - 9:50am

In 1996, I documented some of the errors found in Atlas Shrugged with the following article. ARI had no response.

---WARNING---

ATLAS SHRUGGED PAPERBACKS CORRUPTED BY PUBLISHER!!

Some 35th Anniversary Atlas Shrugged paperbacks have serious typographical errors, some of which actually change the meaning of the sentence.

It is unknown at this time if this is a deliberate attempt to corrupt Ayn Rand's masterpiece, but the paperbacks in question should certainly be avoided.

Those in your possession should be returned to the publisher as being grossly defective. You may include a copy of this article. A demand for refund or replacement with a good version should be made. If the publisher receives enough demands, perhaps the printing will be stopped and corrected. The copy you return should be mutilated in some manner (yet acceptable for refund) such that the book cannot be resold. Removing the cover is not enough. At a minimum, highlight the errors listed below. I would prefer to cut the entire book in half with a saw.

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE WHICH VERSION IS DEFECTIVE?

On the copyright page, the CORRUPTED version that I have seen contained the following lines which distinquished it from a non-corrupt version:

Published by Signet, an imprint of Dutton Signet,

a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

57 56 55 54

The GOOD version reads:

Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50

The Dutton Signet (CORRUPTED) version contains a slightly different typeface than the New American Library version. An additional consequence of this change is that the page numbers eventually get out of sync with the New American Library version.

The New American Library (GOOD) version appears to be identical with my first paperback printing, which is a Signet book published by The New American Library of World Literature, Inc. in July 1959 by arrangement with Random House, Inc.

WHAT ERRORS SHOULD YOU LOOK FOR?

On page 743 of the North American Library (GOOD) version, just below mid page is the following one line paragraph:

``Is . . . is anyone expected?'' she asked ...

``Expected'' is misspelled as ``excepted'' in the Dutton Signet (CORRUPTED) version just below mid page on page 737.

In Galt's speech on page 976 of the North American Library (GOOD) version, second full paragraph begins:

``Just as man can't exist''

the third line (still first sentence) of that paragraph ends with:

``the right of property.''

This becomes ``the right of poverty.'' in the Dutton Signet (CORRUPTED) version, page 977, first full paragraph.

I have checked my hardcover editions and have found none of the errors listed above. The 35th Anniversary hardcover 1st printing contains the notice that it is a facsimile of the original. The page numbers are quite different from either paperback version and are usually the page numbers used when passages are quoted in essays and articles.

There are more errors. I do not know how many or how gross the other corruptions in the Dutton Signet paperback version are. The ones I have seen would surely have outraged Ayn Rand.

I would like to thank Anthony Shelley for discovering these errors and calling them to my attention.

Dennis Wilson
Phoenix, Arizona

1996-April-24

Post 2

Monday, February 2, 2004 - 11:10am

The errors you have listed might have been caused by overreliance on optical character recognition (OCR) for resetting. But it is hard to see why resetting was done. Why not simply use the existing e-files?

Unless whoever created the corrupted edition had no legal right to use the proper e-files. ...

Modern electronic publishing, it should be stressed repeatedly, has NOT obviated the need for editorial vigilance. Even when they are using the proper e-files, sometimes formatters take it upon themselves to retype material for any of a number of reasons. And they won't tell editors that they have done so. And sometimes there is a slip of the formatter's fingers and a whole paragraph disappears "behind" another.

Rodney Rawlings

Post 3

Monday, February 2, 2004 - 11:30am

In this context, I would like to make an observation on Chris Sciabarra's article "Bowdlerizing Ayn Rand" in which he describes apparent omissions in the published JOURNALS OF AYN RAND.

I am a professional copy/production/supervising editor, and it is my strong sense that the errors described are due merely to a flagging of attention during the transcription from AR's handwritten journal entry. While this fact would not excuse the lapse, considering the importance of the material being transcribed, it would exonerate the editor from the charge of deliberate mutilation.

Granted, the omission of the Albert Jay Nock parenthetical reference seems rather unlikely to be due to inadvertence--it forms a "gestalt" to the eye--the presence of a few apparently innocent omissions nearby suggests flagging attention at that point. Perhaps his wife was yelling at him!

Rodney Rawlings

Post 4

Monday, February 2, 2004 - 11:42am