Missing pages

I received a bit of a surprise last evening. We're reading the Easton Press edition of _The Scarlet Letter_ to our son, and looking ahead to chapter 10, I noticed that 14 pages -- page 147-160 -- are not printed in the book. No leaves are missing; it appears that those pages were simply not included when the book was bound. This edition is a reprint of the 1938 Heritage Press edition, and it's a pretty nice reproduction: bright red leather with a simple, attractive gold inlay design on the cover. What a shame about the missing pages!

Do people know of other instances of missing pages in Easton Press books, or is this just a unique aberration?

I had a similar thing happen many years ago when some pages were missing and others out of order. I returned the book and they replaced it promptly. Since then I always inspect a new book page by page. Errors can occur with any publisher.

I’m always skeptical of used books that supposedly have the original shrink wrap, because it means the first owner never inspected it. And, anyway, how do we know it was original? Anyone can shrink wrap a book. I bought one once that had fingerprints on the cover and another with the slipcase wrapped on the outside but the book not wrapped on the inside as Easton always does.

>2 jroger1: Was this an Easton Press book?

Yes. It was a book of art displayed at one of the museums and was a gift for my wife who had visited the museum. She is the one who noticed the missing pages — very embarrassing.

I have the most recent, five volume Easton Press set of Plutarch’s Lives. It’s a beautiful set, but it is missing a page from the life of Julius Caesar (there are two page 314’s, and page 315 is missing). I contacted EP and evidently I was the first person to notice it, but it turns out they were all printed with that page missing. So I found a PDF online of the 1905 edition that is what the EP version is a facsimile of, found the missing page, printed it, and inserted it in the proper place. So yes, this does happen from time to time.

>1 Eumnestes: I purchased the 2 volume Count of Monte Cristo Famous edition in the 1990s placing it on the shelf for future reading. Well I did not get around to reading it until 20 years later. When I began reading it I discovered a a few chapters were missing.

I contacted EP who surprisingly sent me a complimentary single volume edition plus a check for the incomplete volume. They did this because the Famous Edition was out of print. Now that is customer service!

>6 HugoDumas: I’m impressed that EP did that for you! Maybe I should contact them about the smudged printing on a few of the middle pages in my copy of The Mote in God’s Eye. I purchased that from EP in the early 90s but did not get around to reading it until the start of COVID.

>6 HugoDumas: Impressive customer service indeed, after a twenty-year gap. That’s not an option for me, since I purchased my scarlet letter from eBay. It was quite inexpensive, so the money is not an issue. I’m just disappointed that such an otherwise excellent, modest, reading edition turned out to have this flaw.