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Typos and Variants in the Books

coracle
(@coracle)
NarniaWeb's Auntie Moderator

My edition is the 1973 set issued by Penguin under the Puffin books for children. 

It has a few typos, some of which are puzzling, and others distracting.

In VDT when Reepicheep is about to set off alone, he says if he doesn't come back Peepiceek is to be chief mouse. My edition says Reepicheep, which puzzled me for a while! I assume it was a correction made by a zealous proofreader or just bad type-setting.

In LB ch 15,  when Farsight the Eagle names all the places he can see from high up, Ettinsmoor is spelled 'Ettinsmuir'. I noticed this today.

Paul Ford says it was Lewis's own doing in the British editions and HarperCollins editions. He says on the top of p199 of Companion To Narnia  (5th edition) that 'Muir is another form of moor, and it is likely that he forgot how he had spelled it in the earlier books.'

Farsight's speech also mis-spells Cair Paravel as 'Cair Pravel'. Oops.

Anyone else found quirks or typos?

There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

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Topic starter Posted : May 16, 2023 10:22 pm
Courtenay
(@courtenay)
NarniaWeb Fanatic Hospitality Committee

I have that Puffin edition too, and was really surprised to see it says "Reepicheep" where it should say "Peepiceek"! No other edition I've read has that error. It would surely have been baffling for first-time readers who had that incorrect version, since Peepiceek isn't mentioned anywhere else in Dawn Treader (he only plays a cameo role near the end of Prince Caspian), and so it isn't obvious from the context who Reepicheep is actually meant to be talking about.

I think the "Ettinsmuir" error in The Last Battle is there in all editions, as it was definitely in the 1980s Fontana Lions edition that I first read and I noticed it at once, having already read all the previous books and remembering the name of Ettinsmoor. Apparently "muir" is indeed the Scots version of "moor", and perhaps Lewis did forget that he'd used the standard English term when he'd named the moor in question. It seems an odd thing for him to forget, but it's hardly the only inconsistency between the books, and definitely not the biggest...

However, there's one variant that I only became aware of relatively recently, and it still has me puzzled. That Fontana Lions edition of The Last Battle most definitely has the name of the second-last chapter, and the repeated call of several of the characters, as "Further up and further in!" — which is exactly how I remember it from the first time I read it. That's how I've always seen it quoted elsewhere, too, in every Narnia commentary I've ever read, and indeed in the usual closing line of NarniaWeb's own Talking Beasts podcast. And yet... the HarperCollins edition with the coloured illustrations (I think it's late 1990s; I don't currently have a copy) has it as "Farther up and farther in" throughout. I thought that was a mistake, or a modernisation, or something, until I bought the 1970s Puffin editions. It's "farther" in that one too. Shocked   (Both of those versions, I should add, were British editions of the book, so it's not one of the occasional changes that were made for the early American editions.)

That has got me baffled, as it's such an iconic line, and as I said, it seems to be established in the fandom canon as "further". I definitely prefer "further", as it has a wider range of meaning — at least, the way I was taught at school, "farther" only refers to physical distance, while "further" gives the sense of continuing in figurative as well as literal ways, and the characters in the story are definitely embarking on something higher and deeper than just a physical journey as they discover Aslan's country. And yet, and yet... that Puffin edition was, I'm pretty sure, only the second edition of the book ever to be published (certainly the first paperback version). It's the earliest copy I've seen so far, and it has "farther"...

So my question is — and I'm wondering if anyone here can help — which wording is used in the FIRST edition of The Last Battle? What was it that Lewis himself actually wrote? Did he write "further", and that's why most Narnia fans know it as that — and presumably some busybody editor at Penguin Books decided it should be "farther" and changed it for the Puffin paperback? Or did Lewis in fact write "Farther up and farther in", and it got changed some time after the 1970s, and we've all been quoting that famous line incorrectly all these years???

I'd love it if someone could clear this mystery up! Smile  

"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)

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Posted : May 18, 2023 3:19 pm
Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

I didn’t notice any typo errors in the Harper Collins edition of the Narnia books that I own. Maybe the way the set of seven books is numbered would be considered a mistake by those who prefer the published order. Number one of the set is The Magician’s Nephew when it should probably be The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I don’t know if any of the sets available today have the books in published order.  The old Macmillan paperbacks of the 1970’s had the stories in right order, but Pauline Baynes’ illustrations were cropped and the paper was cheaper quality than in the hardcover editions.  So I guess having the numbering incorrect is worth putting up with if you are getting a more durable hardcover book.  However, I still think The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe should be number one. 🙂

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Posted : May 23, 2023 4:00 pm
coracle
(@coracle)
NarniaWeb's Auntie Moderator

@narnian78 So do many of us!

I know of people who stick or write new numbers on the spines of their numbered books - you may like to do the same!

There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

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Topic starter Posted : May 23, 2023 6:57 pm
Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

@coracle 

I won’t alter the books even though I think they should have been numbered differently.  But I have known other people who have changed the numbers on the spines.  The books are quite good in quality otherwise. Another good edition is the paperback set with the color illustrations by Pauline Baynes, but I am not sure if the hardcover version of that set is still in print.  I remember that Barnes & Noble had a book of all seven stories in one volume, but that book is now out of print and very expensive.  As I remember, the order of the stories was chronological. It was quite a nice book and beautifully bound like many of their classics.  I always wondered why they didn’t keep it in print so at least it could be affordable.

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Posted : May 23, 2023 8:04 pm
coracle liked
ValiantArcher
(@valiantarcher)
BC Head and G&B Mod Moderator

How odd, Courtenay! I don't have a first edition, though I did confirm that the US 1973 and 2000 full-colour editions have "further" too.

I ran across a difference between the 1973 and 2000 versions of TLB today, from Tirian's introduction to Digory and Edmund by Peter. In the 2000 edition, Lewis has a line about Tirian meeting a man with a golden beard and a wise face, and then Peter says this is the Lord Digory, who was with Lady Polly at the creation of Narnia. He then goes on to introduce Edmund and Lucy.

In the 1973 edition, though, Lewis has the same line about the man with the golden beard and the wise face but skips the line about Lord Digory, instead going directly to introducing Edmund and Lucy (implying then that Edmund has the golden beard and wise face). I'm assuming the 2000 edition has the text with Lewis's revisions, but haven't tried to look into it more yet.

Death is swallowed up in victory.

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Posted : December 28, 2023 8:35 am
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