Pages of David Jason memoir mistakenly printed in new Bridget Jones novel

Helen Fielding seemed unfazed by the drama as she signed copies of her book

David Jason fans looking to read the star's new autobiography My Life will be able to do so in an unexpected location: inside copies of Helen Fielding's latest Bridget Jones novel.

Due to a fault in the printing process, forty pages of the Only Fools and Horses actor's memoir have been printed in some editions of Mad About The Boy.

"Yes there was a small print error," Penguin Random House told the Evening Standard. "I can't say how many."

The publisher has been trying to weed out rogue copies of the novel, but the newspaper claims that some have reached the reading public.

A spokeswoman for the Vintage imprint of Penguin Random House said: "The printers have had a Bridget moment. A printing error has been detected in some of the very early copies of Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy.

"Copies printed on one day have given readers an accidental preview of David Jason's autobiography. We are taking steps to remove these copies from sale and will be replacing misprinted stock as soon as possible."

Today is Super Thursday, when the book industry releases the titles it expects to compete for the top slots in the Christmas charts.

With almost 1,600 new books hitting the shelves in one go, perhaps it was inevitable that something would go wrong.

In 2010, there was a similarly embarrassing incident for HarperCollins following the publication of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom.

The UK edition of the book, which took the author nine years to complete, was littered with what were largely typographical errors.

Some 80,000 copies of the faulty edition were printed, of which 8,000 made it into the hands of readers.