As is customary with early book releases, there are a few bugs that made it through the rigorous testing procedures for which Fforde books have not become legendary. The following instructions allow you to update your edition to an all new BOE/V1.1.

1: Editions covered by this upgrade: All Hodder hardback, export and Canadian trade editions. ON NO ACCOUNT attempt to upgrade any proofs, US versions or mass market paperbacks. A 'deep text crash' may result which will render your book unreadable and may well wipe out all the planet's fiction.

2: Earth the book by touching it lightly against a dictionary.

3: If you are running your library on the outdated SCROLL V7.3 or PAPYRUS 2.8, please upgrade immediately to BOOK 8.3 which is available by downloading HERE .

4: If you are running the Beta Version of BOOK V9 or "UltraWord™" as it is known and have Anti-GrammasitePro™ or ReadZip™ activated, please disable before upgrade. Third party hardware ancillaries such as bookmarks, pressed flowers, old bus tickets, prophylactics, etc, must also be removed.

5: Using a fine black pen make the following corrections:

i/ Turn to page 14 and where it says 'automatons' cross it out and replace with 'automata'. (Richard Humm)

ii/ Turn to page 39 and where it says ''Mary's reticence was not without foundation" cross out 'reticence' and replace with 'reluctance' so the line reads: ''Mary's reluctance was not without foundation" Strange and perhaps incorrect word choice (Rob Caley)

ii/ Turn to page 41 and where it says 'nine and fifty' cross it out and replace with 'five and ninety'. (Richard Humm)

iii/ Turn to page 67 and where it says:

"How many do you have?" asked Jack, suddenly suspicious.
"100100001."
"One hundred and forty-five?"

Take a 0 out of the binary to make it "10010001." The former was, as many people pointed out, equivalent to 289. (Pete & Steve)

iiib/ Turn to page 83 and where it says:
"The creature was an ugly little monkey-like brute with hair that made it look like a black pig with psoriasis"
Change to read:
"The creature was an ugly little monkey-like brute with matted hair and skin ingrained with the dirt of a thousand missed bath-nights."
The condition of psoriasis is no joking matter, and my unreserved apologies to anyone who has been hurt by this reference.

iv/ Turn to page 114 and where it says "the law regards porridge as not a harmless..." cross out 'not as' and replace with 'as not'. (Richard Humm)

v/ Turn to page 244 and where it says "Gerald's successive ancestors cited many reasons " cross out 'ancestors' and replace with 'descendants' This must be a ChronoGuard thing. (Rob Caley)

vi/ Turn to page 351 and where Jack quotes 'The Quangle-Wangle's Hat' thus:"But his face you could not see, on account of his eaver hat" This should, of course, read 'Beaver Hat'. Apologies to all beavers present. (Gareth Cheesman)

vii/ Turn to page 352 and where it says "the Pobble who hast no toes" remove the 't' from 'hast' to read 'has'. (Richard Humm)

viii/ Turn to page 367 and where it says "sawn-off shotgun" delete 'shotgun' and replace with "rifle" as this is what the Gingerbread man was carrying on page 255. (Richard Humm)

ix/ Turn to page 370 and where it says: "I'll think I'll do your legs first" cross out and the first 'I'll' and replace with "I" Copyediting slippage. (Rob Caley)

6: Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of The Fourth Bear V1.1. To fully authenticate your copy download the upgrade sticker file by clicking HERE. Print out the download and affix it to the title page of your copy. Thank you for using the jasperfforde.com upgrade service.