In 1631, printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas made a rather serious typographical mistake.
The royal printers in London, on their watch, commandment number 4 in the King James Bible was printed with an error.
Thou Shalt Commit Adultery.
You can buy yourself (for a mere $90,000) a copy of what is now referred to variously as the Sinners’ Bible, the Wicked Bible, or the Adulterous Bible. First wedding anniversary is paper!
The question remains as to whether this Bible was just printed carelessly, or whether it was sabotage. George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, complained that:
“I knew the time when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the best, but now the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned.”
Barker and Lucas were fined £300 for their mistake (the equivalent of over £40,000 now), and most of the copies of the Bible inciting people to adultery were burned, making it a very rare and desirable (if you know what I mean…) book to possess now.