According to a report by Rowenna Davis in the Guardian, Jonathan Franzen told an audience in London last night that the British printers of his book Freedom “mistakenly published an old draft of his text” and as a result “thousands” of copies of the book are going to be pulped.

According to the report, “Franzen told the audience at a reading of the book at London’s Southbank Centre that the printers had opened and copied the wrong computer file, rather than one containing the final proof,” and he “urged fans not to read the novel until the correct version is released on Monday.”

What sounds like a major fiasco is given little further detail. Says Davis, “it is not yet known how many copies will have to be pulped. Franzen told the audience that all copies would be exchanged or refunded, including postage and packaging. He did not say whether copies printed in the US — originally published by Farrarr, Straus and Giroux in August –were affected.”