Deep Thoughts from the Quill of the Other C.S. Lewis
Welcome to another in an occasional series of fictitious quotations from a fabricated contemporary of the great Oxbridge professor, Clive Staples Lewis.
The C.S. Lewis who authored these questionable observations, Clyde Scissors Lewis, possessed a worldview enigmatically different from that of the esteemed Christian author. Despite the fact that their two lives overlapped in a variety of ways, the similarities were superficial.
A brief biography of the lesser Lewis is available at this link.
By all means, do not confuse the wisdom of the genuine article with his shadowy counterfeit. Despite any cursory similarities between the two men, this is most definitely not the C.S. Lewis readers have come to know and love.
You can write a masterpiece, only to have it ruined by an inattentive publisher.
It would be bad enough if they filled your retelling of Romeo and Juliet with typos, what if you had just penned the ultimate authority on grammar, or perhaps, spelling?
Last month, British lexicographer Susie Dent released Word Perfect, a “brilliant linguistic almanac.” Unfortunately, the wrong (pre-proofed) version was published, and it was anything but “perfect.”
Although thoroughly embarrassed, Dent was gracious in regard to the error. “To be fair to my publishers, Covid has caused an extraordinary rush on pushing books through the production process, and in many ways it has been a laudable achievement getting anything published at all.”
Many of Mere Inkling’s readers are also writers. Some are fortunate enough to have professional publishers. Dent reminds us that we should not take them for granted, despite their occasional shortcomings.
C.S. Lewis was, of course, quite a prolific writer. This led to his interaction with a variety of different editors. Lewis freely expressed appreciation for a job well done, as I noted in his praise of a French translation of his work.
Lewis was also quite comfortable in discussing precisely how his writings should appear in print. In another post, I described his conversation with a publisher about the presentation of a Shakespearean quotation.
Similarly, Lewis possessed an awareness of the importance of the covers chosen for his books. And he lamented the quality of the paper dictated by wartime rationing.
Mere Inkling has included many other references to publishers in the past, although I am still searching for an ancient roman reference to Cave Scribae.*
Publishers and editors are often the targets of disaffected writers. If you have never seen Mark Twain’s delightful sketches on the subject, don’t shut down your computer before checking my post on the subject.
It would be good to pray that our personal attitudes towards publishers reflect those of C.S. Lewis and Susie Dent rather than Samuel Clemens, since Twain once summarized his attitude in this tragic manner:
If ever a publisher gets a non-terminable contract with an author, that author can never buy his freedom from that slavery on any terms. A publisher is by nature so low and vile that he—that he—well from the bottom of my heart I wish all publishers were in hell.
* Cave Scribae translates to “Beware of the Scribes.” It’s a reference to the ancient practice of publishers having scribes reproduce individual copies of a new work for sale or distribution. Since each copy was technically “unique,” one can only guess how many errors must have slipped surreptitiously into the duplicates.
As for the illustration at the top of this column, there are countless examples of similar mistakes online. They are particularly alarming when they come from “educational” institutions. This one, from Oregon State University, offers a variation of the error illustrated above: “Many people know there learning style…”
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