How accurate is a Penguin? Still more howlers found — Jul 2002 (18 Jul 2002 #22724)

How
accurate is a Penguin? Still more howlers found

WITH interest I have read the letter from Prof. Richard Overy to Mr. William
Blair dated Jan 14, 2000. In this letter Prof. R.
Overy announced a second edition of The Penguin
Historical Atlas of the Third Reich for which he promised a “great many small errors” will be corrected.

I naturally was interested to see whether my copy was the second edition. I purchased the Atlas from
Amazon.com on July 1, 2002. It says only “First published
1996” and “Text copyright © Richard Overy” (and also
“The moral right of the author has been asserted”).

It is therefore not clear whether my copy is the second edition still containing errors, or the first edition which admittedly contains errors but is
still being sold.

The question arises whether a second edition has ever been published. I have written to Penguin pointing out some of the errors.

Gerhard
Rohringer

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I COULDN’T find a second edition either, and I am under the impression that Penguin has not published one.

The more I look, the more errors I find. Have you ever heard of “Neuengomme” concentration camp? (p. 104) How about “Therenstenstdt”? (p. 90) Did you know there is a province in Austria called “Saltzburg”?(p. 90) Oh yes, here’s one for Mr.Rohringer: “Linz – Hitler’s birthplace”! (p. 45) There are many more but I won’t belabour the point.

Could it be that Penguin is a trifle nervous about publishing a revised second edition when there are people like Mr. Rohringer, myself, and of course, David
Irving who may find additional errors?

If Penguin wants to profess its intellectual superiority, which was implicit, if not express at the
Lipstadt trial, it had better be technically perfect. At least as far as The Atlas is concerned, it has a long way to go.

William
Blair