I recently started reading an electronic copy of László Török’s Between Two Worlds: The Frontier Region between Ancient Nubia and Egypt, 3700 BC – 500 AD, and I was shocked at how shoddy it was. Letters and punctuation were missing on almost every page, and the letter f was frequently replaced with an ß! See, for example, this excerpt from page 179:
A signi cant process of change seems to have started in the second half of the Nineteenth Dynasty period. Merenptah s (1213 1203) rst viceroy, Mesui, was probably buried at Aniba (see above), discontinuing (at least for one generation) the traditional Theban burial of the viceroys.
The book wasn’t published by CreateSpace or Publish America. It was the work of Brill, a 300-year-old Dutch publisher that specializes in academic texts. I’m usually rather fond of Brill. A lot of their titles are available in digital form through Brill E-Books, and since UW-Madison subscribes to this service, I can access them for free.
I’m hopeful that the problems with Between Two Worlds are an aberration since I’ve downloaded other Brill e-books, and they’ve been fine. Still, a cockup of this magnitude is a huge embarrassment for such a prestigious publisher, and I hope they’ll fix it at some point.
Codex Lochianus 