Hidden Chapter: Misprint or Intentional

An image of page viii in Peter Parley’s Tales about Ancient Rome, With Some Account of Modern Italy by Samuel G, Goodrich as found in the Columbus State University Archives used to show Chapters 27 and 28 in the table of contents.
An image of page 175 in Peter Parley’s Tales about Ancient Rome, With Some Account of Modern Italy by Samuel G, Goodrich as found in the Columbus State University Archives used to show the first page of first chapter 27.
An image of page 181 in Peter Parley’s Tales about Ancient Rome, With Some Account of Modern Italy by Samuel G, Goodrich as found in the Columbus State University Archives used to show the first page of second chapter 27.
An image of page 188 in Peter Parley’s Tales about Ancient Rome, With Some Account of Modern Italy by Samuel G, Goodrich as found in the Columbus State University Archives used to show the first page of chapter 28.

As one reads this book, it becomes apparent that there is something strange with the later chapters. There are two chapter twenty-sevens. The table of contents lists a short description under each chapter describing the topic of that chapter, but the description for the second chapter twenty-seven matches the description of chapter twenty-eight on the table of contents. However, when you turn to chapter twenty-eight, the description is not on the table of contents at all. This was puzzling and intriguing. With the thought this was a mistake with this copy of the book, more digitized copies were found including a reprint bought on Amazon dated to 2008. However, all copies of the book had this mistake. This raised another question: was this truly a misprint or was this an intentional formatting choice? Printing a book in the 1800s was drastically less expensive than it had been in the past. This is mainly due to the way that books were made as both the price of paper and the way the book was bound had a great impact in the cost of the book. [1] The price of paper and bindings was key to the cost of a book, but the table of contents ends at the very bottom of page viii. Adding the hidden chapter to the table of contents would mean adding another page to the book, and that would have cost Goodrich more to publish. This is the only point that questions this mistake being more than a mass replicated mistake. However, this does not answer the question of why there are two chapter twenty-sevens instead of one. Could there be two chapter twenty-sevens to try to hide the hidden chapter? Did Goodrich intentionally leave one chapter out of the table of contents to save money while publishing, or was this a mistake that was not caught and mass replicated?

[1] Tucker, “Spread of Education and Literacy.”