Authors Make Mistakes
Tappan Wilder was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when his uncle published his enormously successful sixth novel, The Eighth Day, in March 1967.
Madison was Thornton Wilder’s birthplace, where he lived until, age nine and where his father was deeply engaged with town, gown and state as editor and partial owner (eventually full owner) of the Wisconsin State Journal. Through the years, his famous son returned regularly and proudly for celebrated visits.
On November 14th, we salute the 58th anniversary of The Eighth Day receiving the National Book Award for Fiction.. We also seize the opportunity to share the mistake an uncle made in inscribing his book to a Madison-based nephew.
Thornton Wilder’s inscription to his nephew Tappan in a first edition of The Eighth Day. Can you spot the problem?
Take a look at the inscription on the right. Can you spot the problem?
Despite the error “Tappie• (a.k.a Tappan/Tappy) considers his copy of The Eighth Day a treasure.
And now, we leave you with the novel’s cliff-hanger of a first paragraph:
In the early summer of 1902 John Barrington Ashley of Coaltown, a small mining center in southern Illinois, was tried for murder of Breckenridge Lansing, also of Coaltown. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, at one in the morning of Tuesday, July 22, he escaped from his guards on the train that was carrying him to his execution.