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Title: Some Account of the Oxford University Press 1468-1921
Author: Anonymous
Language: English
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THE
OXFORD
University Press
[Illustration: INITIAL FROM THE GREAT CHARTER OF THE UNIVERSITY, 1635/6
Granted by Charles I to confirm and settle printing privileges which had
been first granted in 1632. See p. 112]
SOME ACCOUNT
OF THE
OXFORD
University Press
1468-1921
[Illustration]
_OXFORD_
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M CM XXII
Oxford University Press
_London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _Copenhagen_
_New York_ _Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_
_Bombay_ _Calcutta_ _Madras_ _Shanghai_
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY
_~The author~ desires to express his grateful thanks to all those members
of the Staffs of the Press and its Branches who have helped him in the
compilation of this sketch, or have contributed to its typographical
or pictorial embellishment; and especially to ~Mr. FALCONER MADAN~,
from whose ~Brief Account of the University Press at Oxford (1908)~ the
historical details here mentioned are derived._
OXFORD, _December 1921_.
CONTENTS
I. HISTORICAL SKETCH 9
II. THE PRESS TO-DAY
The Press at Oxford 23
The Press in the War 33
Wolvercote Paper Mill 36
The Press in London 38
Administration 40
Finance 42
Oxford Imprints 45
Catalogues and Advertisement 49
The Press and its Authors 54
Bibles and Prayer Books 58
Clarendon Press Books 61
III. THE PRESS ABROAD
India 63
Canada 67
Australasia 68
South Africa 69
China 69
Scandinavia 69
The United States 70
IV. OXFORD BOOKS
Oxford Series 73
Oxford Books on the Empire 81
The Oxford Standard 83
Illustrated Books 90
Official Publications 92
The Oxford English Dictionary 95
The Dictionary of National Biography 103
The Oxford Medical Publications 106
Oxford Books for Boys and Girls 109
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 110
I
HISTORICAL SKETCH
The first book printed at Oxford is the very rare Commentary on the
Apostles’ Creed attributed to St. Jerome, the colophon of which is dated
17 December, Anno domini Mcccclxviij. It is improbable that a book was
printed at Oxford so early as 1468; and the bibliographers are on various
grounds agreed that an x has been omitted. If so, Oxford must be content
to date the beginning of its Press from the year 1478; while Westminster,
its only English precursor, produced its first book from Caxton’s press
in 1477.
The first printer was Theodoric Rood, who came to England from Cologne,
and looked after the Press until about 1485; soon after which date the
first Press came to an end. The second Press lasted from 1517 until
1520, and was near Merton College. Some twenty-three books are known to
have issued from these Presses; they are for the most part classical or
theological works in Latin. There is no doubt that this early Press was
really the University Press; for many of the books have the imprint _in
Alma Universitate Oxoniae_ or the like, some bear the University Arms,
and some are issued with the express privilege of the Chancellor of the
University.
[Illustration: Device used on the back of the title of _Sphæra Civitatis_
Oxford 1588]
After 1520 there is a gap in the history, which begins again in 1585.
The Chancellor of that time was Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the Earl
of Leicester, who in the first issue of the new Press is celebrated
as its founder. Convocation in 1584 had appointed a committee _De
Libris imprimendis_, and in 1586 the University lent £100 to an Oxford
bookseller, Joseph Barnes, to carry on a press. In the next year an
ordinance of the Star Chamber allowed one press at Oxford, and one
apprentice in addition to the master printer. Barnes managed the Press
until 1617, and printed many books now prized by collectors, among them
the first book printed at Oxford in Greek (the Chrysostom of 1586), the
first book with Hebrew type (1596), Richard de Bury’s _Philobiblon_, and
Captain John Smith’s _Map of Virginia_.
FOUR FOUNDERS OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
[Illustration: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester]
[Illustration: Archbishop Laud]
[Illustration: Dr. John Fell]
[Illustration: Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon]
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF THE OLD CONGREGATION HOUSE
The first printing-house owned by the University; used for storing
Oriental type and printing-furniture, 1652.]
[Illustration: Upper part of the first page of the Oxford (now London)
Gazette, 1665. The oldest newspaper still existing in England]
The first notable promoter of the Oxford Press was Archbishop Laud,
whose statutes contemplate the appointment of an _Architypographus_,
and who secured for the University in 1632 Letters Patent authorizing
three printers (each with two presses and two apprentices), and in
1636 a Royal Charter entitling the University to print ‘all manner
of books’. The privilege of printing the Bible was not exercised at
this date; but in 1636 Almanacks were produced, and this seems to have
alarmed the Stationers’ Company, who then enjoyed a virtual monopoly of
Bibles, Grammars, and Almanacks; for we find that in 1637 the University
surrendered the privilege to the Stationers for an annual payment of
£200, twice the amount of Joseph Barnes’s working capital. The most
famous books belonging to what may be called the Laudian period were
five editions of Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and one of Bacon’s
_Advancement of Learning_ in English.
[Illustration: OXFORD UNIVERSITY ARMS
Some ancient examples used by the Oxford University Press]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: From _The History of Lapland_ by John Shefferus, 1674, the
first anthropological book published by the Press]
The work of the Press during the Civil War is of interest to historians
and bibliographers on account of the great number of Royalist Pamphlets
and Proclamations issued while the Court of Charles I was at Oxford; a
number swollen in appearance by those printed in London with counterfeit
Oxford imprints. But this period is not important in the history of the
Learned Press; and after 1649 it suffered a partial eclipse which did
not pass until the Restoration.
[Illustration: From W. Maundrell’s _Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem_,
Oxford, 1703, engraved by M. Burghers]
The history of the Press in the latter part of the seventeenth century
will always be connected with the name of the second of its great
patrons, Dr. John Fell, Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford. Fell
made the great collection of type-punches and matrices from which the
beautiful types known by his name are still cast at Oxford; he promoted
the setting up of a paper mill at Wolvercote, where Oxford paper is
still made; he conducted the long, and ultimately successful, struggle
with the Stationers and the King’s Printers, from which the history of
Oxford Bibles and Prayer Books begins (1675). In 1671 he and three others
took over the management of the Press, paying the University £200 a
year and spending themselves a large sum upon its development. Lastly,
it seems that he suggested to Archbishop Sheldon the provision, due to
his munificence, of the new and spacious printing house and _Theatre_
which still bears his name. The Press was installed there in 1669, and
began to issue the long series of books which bear the imprint _Oxoniae
e Theatro Sheldoniano_, or in the vulgar tongue _Oxford at the Theater_.
These imprints, indeed, were still used, at times, long after the Press
had been moved from the Sheldonian to its next home in the Clarendon
Building. Many learned folios were printed at this time, including
pioneer work by Oxford students of Oriental languages; the book best
remembered to-day is no doubt Anthony Wood’s _Historia et Antiquitates
Universitatis Oxoniensis_ published in 1674.
To this period belongs also the first exercise of the privilege to print
Bibles and Prayer Books, which was recognized, as we have seen, at least
as early as 1637, when the Stationers’ Company paid the University to
refrain from printing Bibles. This agreement lasted until 1642, and, by
renewal at intervals, until 1672, when it was at length denounced; and in
1675 a quarto English Bible was printed _at the Theater_, and a beginning
made of what has become an extensive and highly technical process of
manufacture and distribution.
[Illustration]
Early in the eighteenth century the Press acquired, with a new
habitation, a name still in very general use. The University was granted
the perpetual copyright of Clarendon’s _History of the Rebellion_ (a
possession in which it was confirmed by the Copyright Act of 1911); and
the _Clarendon Building_ was built chiefly from the profits accruing from
the sales of that book. Many editions were printed in folio at various
dates; and the Press Catalogue still offers the fine edition of 1849,
with the notes of Bishop Warburton, in seven volumes octavo, and that of
the _Life_ in two volumes, 1857; the whole comprising over 5,000 pages
and sold for £4 10_s._ Still cheaper is the one-volume edition of 1843,
in 1,366 pages royal octavo, the price of which is 21_s._ More recently
the demands of piety have been still further satisfied by the issue of
a new edition based on fresh collations made from the manuscript by the
late Dr. Macray. Though the Clarendon Building long since ceased to be
a printing house, one of its rooms is still _The Delegates’ Room_; and
there the Delegates of the Press hold their stated meetings.
In the eighteenth century the Bible Press grew in strength with the
co-operation of London booksellers and finally with the establishment
(in 1770, if not earlier) of its own Bible Warehouse in Paternoster
Row. The Learned Press, on the other hand, though some important books
were produced, suffered from the general apathy which then pervaded the
University. Sir William Blackstone, having been appointed a Delegate,
found that his colleagues did not meet, or met only to do nothing;
and addressed to the Vice-Chancellor a vigorous pamphlet, in which he
described the Press as ‘languishing in a lazy obscurity, and barely
reminding us of its existence, by now and then slowly bringing forth a
Program, a Sermon printed by request, or at best a Bodleian Catalogue’.
The great lawyer’s polemic gradually battered down the ramparts of
ignorant negligence, and the Press began to revive under the new statute
which he promoted. Dr. Johnson in 1767 was able to assure his sovereign
that the authorities at Oxford ‘had put their press under better
regulation, and were at that time printing _Polybius_’.
[Illustration: The Three University Presses]
The Clarendon Building is not large, and the Press very soon outgrowing
it was partly housed in various adjacent buildings, until in 1826-30
the present Press in Walton Street was erected. It is remarkable that
though the building is more like a college than a factory—it is of the
quadrangular plan regular in Oxford—and was built when printing was
still mainly a handicraft, it has been found possible to adapt its solid
fabric and spacious rooms to modern processes with very little structural
alteration. Extensive additions, however, have been and are even now
being made.
The activities of the nineteenth century are too various to detail; but
a few outstanding facts claim mention. The Bible business continued to
prosper, and gained immensely in variety by the introduction of Oxford
India paper and by the publication, in conjunction with Cambridge, of the
Revised Version of the Old and New Testaments. Earlier in the century
there was a period of great activity in the production of editions of the
Classics, in which Gaisford played a great part and to which many foreign
scholars like Wyttenbach and Dindorf gave their support. Later, in the
Secretaryships of Kitchin (for many years afterwards Dean of Durham) and
of Bartholomew Price, new ground was broken with the famous _Clarendon
Press Series_ of school books by such scholars as Aldis Wright, whose
editions of Shakespeare have long served as a quarry for successive
editors. The _New English Dictionary_ began to be published in 1884.
Meanwhile the manufacturing powers of the Press at Oxford and the selling
powers of the publishing house in London were very widely extended by the
energies of Mr. Horace Hart and Mr. Henry Frowde, and the foundations
were laid of the great and multifarious enterprises which belong to the
history of the last twenty years.
[Illustration: THE QUADRANGLE OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS AT OXFORD]
[Illustration: Fire-place in the Delegates’ Room Clarendon Building]
[Illustration: Grinling Gibbons Fire-place in one of the London Offices]
The growth of the Press in the first two decades of the present century
is due to the co-operation of a large number of individuals: of the
members of the University who have acted as Delegates; of their officers,
managers, and employees; and of the authors of Oxford books. In so far,
however, as this period of its history can be identified with the name of
one man, it will be remembered as that in which the late CHARLES CANNAN
served the Delegates as Secretary. The Delegates at his death placed
on record their judgement that he had made an inestimable contribution
to the prosperity and usefulness of the Press. The _Times Literary
Supplement_, in reviewing the last edition of the _Oxford University
Roll of Service_, gave some account of the services performed by the
University in the war. One paragraph dealt with the work of the Press:—
‘Probably no European Press did more to propagate historical and ethical
truth about the war. The death of its Secretary, Charles Cannan, a year
ago, has left an inconsolable regret among all those more fortunate
Oxford men, old and young, who had the honour to be acquainted with
one of the finest characters and most piercing intelligences of our
time. He was a very great man, and is alive to-day in the spirit of the
institution which he enriched with his personality and his life.’
II
THE PRESS TO-DAY
§ 1. _The Press at Oxford_
The main building of the Oxford Press, erected 1826-30, consists of
three sides of a quadrangle. The two main wings, each of three floors,
are still known as the _Learned Side_ and the _Bible Side_, though their
appropriation to Bibles and secular books has long since ceased in
fact. On the Learned Side are the hand composing rooms, both the book
department and the jobbing department, where some readers and compositors
are employed in setting up the official papers of the University,
examination papers, and other miscellaneous work, and the more difficult
and complicated books produced for the Delegates or other publishers.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The total quantity of type in the Press is estimated at over one million
pounds of metal, and includes some 550 different founts of type in
some 150 different characters, ranging from the hieroglyphic and the
prehistoric ‘Minoan’ (cast to record Sir Arthur Evans’s discoveries), to
the phonetic scripts of Sweet and Passy; and including Sanskrit, Greek,
Roman, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Amharic, Coptic, Armenian,
Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, Sinhalese, Tamil, Gothic, Cyrillic. Here,
too, are the famous Fell types acquired by the University about 1667.
These are virtually the same as the founts from which were printed the
first edition of _The Faerie Queene_ and the First Folio Shakespeare;
and their beauty makes them still the envy of printers all the world
over. Here compositors are still daily engaged in setting the Oxford
Dictionary (with its twenty-one different sizes or characters of type),
which has been slowly growing since 1882. One compositor has a record of
thirty-eight years’ continuous work on the Dictionary.
In part of the same wing is the _Delegates’ Warehouse_. Here, and in a
number of annexes, including the old _Delegates’ School_ built about
1840, repose the oldest and most durable of the Delegates’ publications.
They are stored for the most part in lofty stacks of unfolded sheets,
like the piers of a Norman crypt. From these vaults was drawn into the
upper air, in 1907, the last copy of Wilkins’s _Coptic New Testament_,
published in 1716, the paper hardly discoloured and the impression still
black and brilliant. It is estimated that these warehouses contain some
three and a half million copies of about four thousand five hundred
distinct books.
[Illustration: Ancient Oak Frames in one of the Composing Rooms]
[Illustration: The Upper Composing Room]
[Illustration: Monotype Casters]
[Illustration: Ink-making]
[Illustration: The Old Machine Room]
[Illustration: A Perfecting Machine with Self-feeder]
[Illustration: The Old Bindery (now a Warehouse)]
[Illustration: One of the Warehouses]
Of the _Bible Side_ the ground floor is now the press room or _Machine
Room_, which, with its more recent extensions, holds about fifty
machines, from the last survivor of the old flat-impression double
Platens to the most modern American double-cylinder ‘perfecting’ presses
with their automatic ‘feeders’. All kinds of printing are done here,
from the small numbers of an oriental book or a Prayer Book in black and
red to the largest impression of a Bible printed in sheets containing
320 pages each. The long experience of printing Bibles on thin paper and
especially on Oxford India paper has given the Oxford machine-minder an
unrivalled dexterity in the nice adjustment required to produce a fine
clean effect on paper which will not stand a heavy impression.
As the sheets come from machine they are sent to the _Bindery_. This
was until recently on the floor above the machine room, but has lately
been transferred to a larger and more convenient building erected in the
old garden behind the Press. The Oxford Bindery deals with most of the
Clarendon Press books in cloth bindings, and prides itself upon the fine
finish of the cases and gilding of such beautiful books as the _Oxford
Book of English Verse_, as well as on being able to turn out artistic and
attractive cloth and paper bindings for books sold at the lowest prices.
It still deals with a part only of the books printed under the same roof;
but a large expansion is looked for in the near future.
Between the two wings, and across the quadrangle, are two houses once
occupied by the late Horace Hart and by Dr. Henry Bradley, now the senior
of the three editors of the Oxford Dictionary. The houses became some
years ago unfit for habitation from the encroachment of machinery; but
one of them was a welcome refuge during the years of war to the staff of
the Oxford Local Examinations, who on the 5th of August 1914 were turned
out of their office at an hour’s notice to make room for a Base Hospital.
Adjacent to the houses are the fire-proof _Plate Room_, where some 750
tons of metal are stored, the _Stereotype and Electrotype Foundry_,
and the _Monotype Rooms_, a department which has lately added to its
equipment and bids fair to pass the ancient composing rooms in output.
Other departments in and about the old building are the _Photographic
Room_, famous for its collotype printing, the _Type Foundry_, where Fell
type is still cast from the old matrices, and the _Ink Factory_.
The front of the building on Walton Street consists chiefly of packing
rooms, where books are dispatched by rail or road to the City of London
and elsewhere, and of offices—those of the Printer to the University on
the ground floor and those of the Secretary to the Delegates above. Here
are reference libraries of books printed or published by the Press, and
records ranging from the oldest Delegates’ minute-book of the seventeenth
century to modern type-written correspondence arranged on the ‘vertical’
system of filing.
As the visitor enters the main gate the first object which catches his
eye is a plain stone monument on the lawn. There are inscribed the names
of the forty-four men of the Oxford Press who gave their lives in the
War. Beyond the memorial is the quadrangle, made beautiful by grass and
old trees; and from upper windows it is still possible to look over the
flats of the Thames Valley and see the sun set behind Wytham Woods.
Corporate feeling has always been strong among the workers at the
Press, and though the Delegates and their officers have done what they
could to promote it, it is essentially a natural growth. Many of the
work-people come of families which have been connected with the Press for
generations; and they are proud not only of the old traditions of fine
and honest work, but also of the usefulness and scholarly excellence of
the books on which their labour is spent. The Press is, in all its parts,
conscious at once of its unity and of its relation to the University of
which it is an integral part.
THE NAGEL BUILDING
[Illustration: The New Bindery]
[Illustration: The Crypt]
[Illustration: THE WAR MEMORIAL]
This spirit is well shown by the history of the Press Volunteer Fire
Brigade, constituted in 1885. The Brigade now numbers thirty-two officers
and men, who by regular drills and competitions have made themselves
efficient firemen, and able to assist the Oxford City Brigade in case
of need. The Press possesses also a branch of the St. John Ambulance
Brigade, and first aid can be given at once if any accident happens.
Various Provident and Benevolent Societies exist at the Press, and the
principle of co-operation by the employer was recognized for many years
before the passing of the National Health Insurance Act. The Hospitals
Fund makes substantial yearly contributions to the Radcliffe Infirmary
and the Oxford Eye Hospital, and in view of the pressing needs of these
institutions the subscription to the Fund has recently been doubled.
The common life naturally finds expression in the organization of
recreation of all kinds. There is a Dramatic Society, the records of
which go back to 1860; an Instrumental Society, dating from 1852; a Vocal
Society, a Minstrel Society, a Piscatorial Society; Athletic, Cricket,
Football, and Bowls Clubs, now amalgamated; and, not the least useful nor
the least entertaining, the Gardening Association, formed during the war
to meet the demand for more potatoes. Such of the men of the Press as
were obliged to content themselves with the defence of the home front,
responded with enthusiasm in their own gardens and allotments; and the
Food Production Exhibition which crowned their efforts in the summer of
1918 became an annual event. In peace, as in war, there is need for all
the food we can produce; and the Gardening Association has very wisely
not relaxed its efforts.
The Clarendon Press Institute in Walton Street, close to the Press
itself, provides accommodation for lectures, debates, and dramatic and
other entertainments, as well as a library, a reading room, and rooms for
indoor games. The building was given by the Delegates, who contribute to
its maintenance, but its management is completely democratic. The members
appoint their own executive and are responsible for their own finances.
The Council have since 1919 issued a quarterly illustrated Magazine,
printed ‘in the house’. The _Clarendonian_ publishes valuable and
entertaining records of the professional interests and social activities
of the employees of the Press, as well as affording some outlet for
literary aspirations.
§ 2. _The Press in the War_
The Press made to the prosecution of the War both a direct and an
indirect contribution. In August 1914 about 575 adult males were employed
at Oxford; of these sixty-three, being members of the Territorial Force,
were mobilized at the outbreak of war; and of the remainder some 293
enlisted in 1914 or later. Considering the number of those who from age
or other causes were unfit for service, the proportion of voluntary
enlistment was high. The London Office and Wolvercote Mill also gave
their quota to the service of the Crown.
Those who were obliged to remain behind were not idle. The Oxford
historians at once engaged in the controversy upon the responsibility for
the War; and in September 1914 the Press published _Why We are at War:
Great Britain’s Case_, a series of essays closely and dispassionately
reasoned, and illustrated by official documents including the German
White Book, reproduced exactly from the English translation published in
Berlin for neutral consumption and vitiated by clumsy variations from
the German original. _Why We are at War_ rapidly went through twelve
impressions, and at the instance of Government was translated into six
languages. The profits were handed over to the Belgian Relief Fund. At
the same time was initiated, under the editorship of Mr. H. W. C. Davis,
the series of Oxford Pamphlets on war topics, of which in a short time
more than half a million copies were sold all over the world. Later, when
the public appetite for pamphlets slackened, and the world had leisure
for closer study, the series of _Histories of the Belligerents_ was
founded, which is noticed elsewhere.
‘The Clarendon Press,’ writes Sir Walter Raleigh in his Introduction to
the _Oxford University Roll of Service_, ‘though deprived of the services
of virtually all its men of military age, was active in the production of
books and pamphlets, most of them written by Oxford men, setting forth
the causes and issues of the War—a mine of information, and an armoury of
apologetics.’
Not the least of the services rendered by the Press was the printing
done for the Naval Intelligence Department of the Admiralty directed by
Admiral Sir Reginald Hall. Both secrecy and speed were essential to the
usefulness of this work, and to secure them the Printer to the University
made special arrangements involving a severe strain upon himself and
those to whom the work was entrusted. Admiral Hall, when unveiling the
Press War Memorial in October 1920, declared that the work done was
unique in kind, and that without the help of the Press the operations of
his Department could not have been carried out with success.
[Illustration: WOLVERCOTE PAPER MILL]
[Illustration: Rag Sorting]
[Illustration: Rag Cutting]
[Illustration: Rag Boiling]
[Illustration: Rag Breaking]
As the War dragged on, the numbers employed at the Press steadily
declined; the demands of Government as steadily increased; the shortage
of materials of all kinds became more and more acute. None the less
the Bible Press met an unprecedented demand for the New Testament by
supplying within three years four and a half million of copies for use
in the field. The Learned Press, too, continued to produce, though
the volume of production became less and less. The machinery of the
Dictionary, though its movement was retarded, never came to a standstill.
The scientific journals continued to appear, and not a few learned books
were published. A greater number, however, were placed in the Delegates’
safes, in expectation of the increased facilities which the end of the
War has hardly brought. The manufacturing powers of the Press, indeed,
have virtually reached their pre-war level; but the ever-rising cost of
labour and materials has made it as yet impossible to restore to its old
volume the output of books which could at no time have been remunerative.
It may be added that the Delegates, like other publishers, have had to
consider that the purchasing power of the public on which they rely has
not kept pace with the rise in costs. The price of books has of course
risen very greatly; but the ratio of increase has been substantially
lower than that of commodities in general.
§ 3. _Wolvercote Paper Mill_
The first mention of paper-making in or near Oxford is a story of one
Edwards, who about 1670 planned to erect a mill at Wolvercote and was
encouraged by Fell. In 1718 Hearne the antiquary wrote that ‘some of the
best paper in England is made at Wolvercote Mill’. It was bought by the
Press in 1870.
The Mill stands on a branch of the Thames, on the edge of the quiet
village of Wolvercote, and near the ruins of Godstow Nunnery. The
water-wheel has long ceased to play more than a very minor part in the
driving of the mill, which now has two modern paper-making machines, 72
and 80 inches wide respectively. The power used is partly steam, but a
large part of the plant has quite recently been electrified.
[Illustration: Beater Room]
[Illustration: Machine Room]
[Illustration: Paper Sorting]
[Illustration: Paper Stock Warehouse]
Most varieties of high-class printing paper are made at Wolvercote,
which besides feeding the Press does a considerable trade with other
printers. The paper made for the Oxford Dictionary and some other books
is of the finest rag and is probably as durable as the best hand-made
paper of former times. But the Mill is best known for its ‘Bible’ papers,
exceptionally thin, tough, and opaque, with a fine printing surface.
Paper of this kind reaches its acme in the famous Oxford India Paper, the
invention of which made revolutionary changes in the printing of Bibles.
A great many Oxford books are now printed in two editions, an ordinary
and an India paper. If the saving of space is an important consideration,
the convenience of the thinner editions of such books as the _Concise
Oxford Dictionary_, the _Concise Dictionary of National Biography_, or
the _Oxford Survey of the British Empire_ is obvious; and many people
like to read the Poets and the Classics in thin and light volumes. The
_Oxford Homer_ will go into a pocket, though it has 1,374 pages; and
the India paper _Shakespeare_ and _Oxford Book of English Verse_ are
delightfully easy to carry and handle.
The Controller of the Mill is Mr. Douglas Clapperton (a name well known
in the paper trade), who succeeded Mr. Joseph Castle in 1916.
§ 4. _The Press in London_
The association of the Oxford Press with London booksellers—the
publishers of former days—goes back to early times. Apart from the
negative agreement with the Stationers’ Company, _not_ to print Bibles
and Almanacks, we find, at the end of the seventeenth century, Oxford
Bibles bearing the imprint of various London booksellers. In 1776 Dr.
Johnson wrote to the Master of University College a letter, printed
by Boswell, in which he sets forth with knowledge and perspicacity
the philosophy of bookselling; the moral of the discourse is that the
University must offer more attractive discounts to the book trade—a
doctrine which has been adopted in modern times, though in 1776 it
perhaps fell upon deaf ears.
Not later than 1770 a Bible Warehouse was established in Paternoster
Row. But it was not until a century later that the Press undertook
the distribution in London of its secular books. In 1884 these books,
formerly sold by Messrs. Macmillan, were taken over by the Manager of
the Bible Warehouse, Mr. Henry Frowde, who thus became sole publisher to
the University; an office which he continued to hold with great skill,
devotion, and success until on his retirement in 1913 he was succeeded by
Mr. Humphrey Milford.
[Illustration: AMEN CORNER LONDON]
To-day the activities of the Press in or near Amen Corner, London, E.C.
4, are multifarious. From his bound stocks Mr. Milford is ready at short
notice to supply to the booksellers or booksellers’ agents any Clarendon
Press book, any Bible or Prayer Book, any of the books published by
himself as publisher to the University, such as Oxford Poets, World’s
Classics, Oxford Elementary Books, or by himself and Messrs. Hodder and
Stoughton—the Oxford Medical Publications—or for the numerous learned
bodies and American Universities for whom he is agent whether in the
United Kingdom or universally.
In the premises at Amen Corner alone it is estimated that upwards of
three quarters of a million books are at any one time in stock. Packing
and distribution is carried on in the basement and also at Falcon Square,
where the large export department operates. Mr. Milford also maintains at
Old Street a ‘quire’ department from which books in sheets are given out
to his own or other binderies, and in Aldersgate Street a bindery from
which many of the finest Bibles and other leather books are turned out.
The offices at Amen Corner are the centre of the selling activities
of the Press; from them is directed the policy of the branches of the
business at home and abroad. An institution so far-flung naturally causes
some confusion in the public mind. Inquiries from India have sometimes
been addressed to New York, and Mr. Horace Hart treasured an envelope
addressed to _The Controller of the Universe_. In general, however, it
is now widely understood that inquiries for books should be addressed
(by booksellers, or by the public, if the usual trade channels fail)
to _Oxford University Press_ in London or at the nearest Branch (New
York, Toronto, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Shanghai,
Copenhagen); questions about printing to _Controller, Clarendon Press,
Oxford_, and proposals for publication either to the nearest Branch or
direct to the _Secretary, Clarendon Press, Oxford_.
§ 5. _The Administration of the Press_
All the activities of the Press may be described as a function of the
corporation known as the _Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars_ of the
University of Oxford, acting through the Delegates of the Press. The
constitution of this Delegacy is in some respects peculiar. So long ago
as 1757 the statute promoted by Sir William Blackstone for the better
management of the Press established the principles of continuity and of
expert knowledge by the constitution of _Perpetual Delegates_; and these
principles have been maintained.
The Delegacy is now composed of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors for
the time being _ex officio_, and (normally) of ten others, of whom
five are Perpetual. Delegates are appointed for a term of years by the
Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, by whom they may be re-elected; but when a
vacancy occurs among the perpetual Delegates, the Delegates as a whole
are enjoined by statute to ‘subrogate’ one of the junior Delegates
to be perpetual, _ad supplendum perpetuo numerum quinque Perpetuorum
Delegatorum_.
The roll of the Delegates contains the names of many famous scholars.
Among those of recent times may be mentioned William Stubbs, Ingram
Bywater, Frederick York Powell. Within the last few years the Press has
sustained very heavy losses in the death of some of the most experienced
of its Delegates. William Sanday, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity,
took an active part in the many works of profound learning upon New
Testament criticism, by which Oxford has maintained its fame for the
prosecution of Biblical learning. Henry Tresawna Gerrans, Fellow of
Worcester College, was active in financial administration and in the
organization of educational publications. David Henry Nagel, Fellow
of Trinity College, gave invaluable advice on scientific books and on
technical processes of manufacture. He was chiefly responsible for the
plan of the new Bindery, recently completed, which bears his name. The
services of Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine, and of
Charles Cannan, of Trinity College, for over twenty years Secretary to
the Delegates, are noticed elsewhere in these pages.
The composition of the board on 1 December 1921 was as follows:
The Vice-Chancellor (Dr. L. R. Farnell, Rector of Exeter College) and
the Proctors; T. B. Strong, Bishop of Ripon and formerly Dean of Christ
Church (_extra numerum_, by Decree of Convocation); C. R. L. Fletcher,
Magdalen College; P. E. Matheson, Fellow of New College; D. G. Hogarth,
Fellow of Magdalen College and Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum; N.
Whatley, Fellow of Hertford College; Sir Walter Raleigh, Fellow of Merton
College and Professor of English Literature—all perpetual Delegates: H.
J. White, Dean of Christ Church; Sir Archibald Garrod, Student of Christ
Church and Regius Professor of Medicine; Cyril Bailey, Fellow of Balliol
College; H. E. D. Blakiston, President of Trinity; and N. V. Sidgwick,
Fellow of Lincoln.
The principal officers are: _in Oxford_, R. W. Chapman, Oriel College,
_Secretary_; J. de M. Johnson, Exeter College, _Assistant Secretary_; F.
J. Hall, _Printer to the University_; _in London_, Humphrey Milford, New
College, _Publisher to the University_; _in New York_, W. W. McIntosh,
Vice-President of the American Branch; _in Toronto_, S. B. Gundy, Manager
of the Canadian Branch; _in Bombay_, G. F. J. Cumberlege, Worcester
College, Manager of the Indian Branch; _in Melbourne_, E. R. Bartholomew,
Manager of the Australian Branch.
§ 6. _The Finances of the Press_
For some two centuries from the time of Fell the Press was partly
controlled by private partners; since the last of these was bought out
by the efforts of Bartholomew Price, the University has been completely
master of all its printing and publishing business. The Press to-day has
no shareholders or debenture-holders, and subserves no private interest.
On the other hand it possesses virtually no endowment. The whole of its
great business has been gradually built up by the thrifty utilization
of profits made by the sale of its books or in a minor degree from work
done for outside customers. The maintenance of the Learned Press, with
its output of scholarly and educational books, many of which are in
their nature unremunerative, depends and has always depended upon the
profitable management of the publications of the Press as a whole. In the
last century the revenue devoted to learning was supplied mainly from the
sale of Bibles and Prayer Books; but changing conditions led the managers
of the Press to the conclusion that if the promotion of education and
research were to keep pace with the growing volume and range of the
demand, it would be necessary to expand the general activities of the
business in many directions.
In prudent pursuance of a far-sighted policy, the overseas Branches
of the Press were established to increase the sale of Oxford books;
new departments of the publishing business were created, such as the
very extensive series of cheap editions of the English Classics, and,
more recently, the Oxford Elementary Books and the Oxford Medical
Publications; and in the course of years the publications of the Learned
Press itself have gradually become more popular in character and
addressed to a wider audience. In the event, the Press to-day possesses a
business of such magnitude and variety as will, it may be hoped, enable
it to surmount the formidable obstacles which the increased cost of
manufacture opposes to the production of all works of learning.
The demands made upon the Press for the organization and publication
of research are now at least as great as ever. It has again and again
been pointed out by the friends of research, that organization and
encouragement are idle unless the publication of valuable results is
guaranteed; and in the past scholars in this country, and not in this
country only, have looked to the Presses of Oxford and Cambridge to do
the work which in Germany was carried out by Academies subsidized by
Government for this purpose. But the fulfilment of such expectations is
far more onerous than formerly. The tenth and last volume of the great
English Dictionary, now more than half printed, will when it is complete
have cost at least £50,000. The revised edition of Liddell and Scott’s
Greek Lexicon, upon which the Delegates embarked some years before the
war, is now estimated to cost £20,000. These are enterprises in the
successful conclusion of which the honour of the University is concerned;
and they will be concluded; but the date of completion, and therefore the
initiation of other projects of learning, have inevitably been retarded
by the events of the last seven years.
The endowment of research is a difficult subject, and nobody is more
conscious than are the Delegates of the Press, that results of lasting
value are not achieved by the mere expenditure of money. Yet they cannot
but be aware that by the possession of the machinery and traditions of
such works as the English Dictionary, and by their intimate association
with experts in many fields, they are in a position to promote research
and co-operative enterprise in the most effective and economical way.
The support given to the Press in the past, whether by individuals
or by other institutions devoted to learning, has been trifling in
consideration of the work which it has produced. The need of such support
is now far more urgent; and the record of the Press is proof that
financial support would be turned to good account.
§ 7. _Oxford Imprints_
The imprints used by the Press as printers and as publishers are
various, and their import is not always understood. _Oxford at the
Clarendon Press_ is historically and strictly a printer’s imprint, and
it is confined to books printed at Oxford; but it has come to mean
more than this, and to be appropriated to such books as are not only
printed at Oxford, but are also published _auctoritate Universitatis_,
their contents as well as their form being certified by the University,
acting through the Delegates of the Press. A book with this imprint may
in general be assumed to be published at the expense of the Delegates;
but the ‘Clarendon Press imprint’ has come to be so prized as carrying
the Oxford ‘hall-mark’ that its use has occasionally been solicited and
accorded for works of learning produced under the patronage of government
or of learned societies within the Empire and the United States of
America.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The Press publishes also, in the ordinary course of business, large
numbers of books for which the Delegates assume a less particular
responsibility; these are issued with the London imprint of the Publisher
to the University (_Oxford University Press: London, Humphrey Milford_)
or those of its branches abroad (_Oxford University Press American
Branch_, _Oxford University Press Indian Branch_ and so on), or on behalf
of the numerous universities, learned societies, or private publishers
for whom the University Press publishes either universally or in certain
parts of the world. Among the bodies for whom the Press acts as publisher
are the British Museum, the British Academy, the Early English Text
Society, the Chaucer Society, and the Philological Society; the Egypt
Exploration Society, Society of Antiquaries, the Pali Text Society,
the Church Music Society, and the Royal Society of Literature; the
Universities of St. Andrews, Bombay, and Madras; the University Presses
of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton; the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, the American
Historical Association, and the American Scandinavian Foundation. _The
Oxford Medical Publications_ and some other books are issued with the
joint imprint of Henry Frowde (Mr. Humphrey Milford’s predecessor as
Publisher to the University) and Hodder and Stoughton. The Press is
publisher in Australia to many English houses.
§ 8. _Catalogues and Advertisement_
Until recent years the Press has relied on its trade catalogues and
special lists, and on the skilled assistance of the bookseller, to
make known to the public the great number and variety of its issues of
the Bible, the New Testament, Prayer Books, Hymn Books, and kindred
works, as well as of its general publications—reprints, medical books,
elementary books and so on; while the Clarendon Press Catalogue of
learned and educational books was a relatively modest affair of under
200 pages. The need of a single general catalogue for the information of
librarians and book-lovers had long been felt, but pressure of business
delayed its preparation until the late Mr. Charles Cannan addressed
himself to the task, and with the devoted co-operation of his daughters
(who had replaced the members of the office staff gone forth to war)
and the advice of many scholars, produced in 1916 the first edition of
the _General Catalogue_, comprising over 500 pages of close print and
including under one comprehensive classification all the secular books
sold by the Press, wheresoever printed, and whether published by the
University on its own account or on behalf of other University Presses
or learned bodies; together with a representative list of Bibles, &c.
(useful to the inquirer though not intended as any substitute for the
elaborate trade catalogues or for the indispensable guidance of the
expert bookseller), and a very full alphabetical index.
The General Catalogue has in the second edition been brought up to
January 1920, and a third edition is in preparation. Supplements are also
from time to time issued comprehending the books published since the
current edition of the Catalogue. The Supplement now current comprises
all books published in 1920.
For the convenience of specialists the Catalogue is also issued in
sections—History, Literature, the Classics, Natural Science, Cheap
Reprints—and special lists have recently been made of books on such
subjects as the British Empire, International Law and Politics, India,
Modern Philosophy. Schoolmasters and University teachers are asked
to apply for the _Select Educational Catalogue_ issued at frequent
intervals, which by omission of the larger and more elaborate books
allows of illustrative information for which there is no room in the
general catalogue.
The General Catalogue has been computed to contain over 8,000 distinct
books or editions of books. These vary from such works as the _New
English Dictionary_ and the _Dictionary of National Biography_, with
their 15,000 and 30,000 pages, to the smallest and cheapest pamphlets and
school-books. The total may be guessed to comprise something like two and
a half millions of printed pages of which no two are identical.
The issue of the Catalogue has secured a wide and increasing recognition
of the comprehensive character of Oxford publications. ‘There are
publishers and publishers, but there is only one Oxford University
Press’, exclaims a writer in the _Athenaeum_; and many reviewers have
noted with sympathetic admiration the value of the Catalogue, not as a
mere price list but as a work of reference and as a book to read. Though
it necessarily requires revision as new publications accrue, it is hoped
that the Catalogue will not be treated as ‘throw-away literature’. It is
a well-printed and solidly bound book, and the cost of supplying free
copies to book-buyers all over the world is not inconsiderable.
The Press produces two periodicals descriptive of its publications:
the official _Bulletin_ distributed to booksellers, librarians, and
other professional buyers, and the unofficial _Periodical_ addressed
to amateurs. Number 1 of the _Bulletin_ (4 April 1912) consisted of a
single page; but the desire for more information was widely expressed,
and a recent number contains in eight pages a classified list of books
published during four weeks, with bibliographical and other particulars,
a statement of the various catalogues obtainable on application, extracts
from reviews, and a list of books which have gone out of print since
the current issue of the catalogue. This list is designed to protect
booksellers and the public against the assumption, too frequently made,
that any and every book is ‘out of print’ which cannot be produced at
a moment’s notice. The public are asked not to believe too easily that
books are unobtainable. A provincial bookseller (in a University town)
recently declared himself ‘unable to trace’ an Oxford book, published in
1920, reviewed at length by the leading literary papers, and advertised
nearly every other week in the _Times Literary Supplement_. Many books
no doubt (though not many Oxford books) have been and still are out
of print; and in the absence of an up-to-date index of current books,
the difficulties of the bookseller have been great. Now, however, when
the 1920 edition of the trade _Reference Catalogue_ is available, with
its single alphabetical index (of 1,075 pages in double column), the
ascertainment of the facts is not difficult except in so far as the
catalogues indexed have themselves become obsolete. All information about
Oxford books that is _not_ in the 1920 _Reference Catalogue_ may be found
in the _Supplement_ of Books published in 1920, or in the cumulative list
of _Price Changes_, or in the _Bulletin_; all of which every bookseller
has, or may have for the asking.
With the _Bulletin_ is issued from time to time a supplement calling the
attention of librarians and others to Oxford books in some special field.
The circulation of the _Bulletin_ is about 2,000.
The _Periodical_ is a ‘house magazine’, perhaps the first of its kind. It
was first published in December 1896, and now appears five times a year.
Its contents include extracts, of sufficient length to be readable, from
new Oxford books, specimen illustrations, quotations from reviews and
other newspaper comment on the productions of the Press, obituaries and
other honorific notices of authors (on appointment, decoration, or the
like), and a certain amount of quasi-literary gossip; for even authors
have their foibles. The original editor, who has compiled every number
for a quarter of a century, is still at his post, and the popularity of
the little paper increases. The demand comes from all over the world—the
United States takes nearly half the total and the number of copies
distributed gratis of each issue now exceeds ten thousand.
Oxford Bibles and Prayer Books can be inspected in mass at many
booksellers’, as well as in the Depository at 116 High Street, Oxford,
and in the showrooms at Amen Corner, in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in
the Branches overseas. Lack of space has everywhere made it impossible
to exhibit the far greater number of Clarendon Press and other secular
books on the same scale, but the books may be seen on application at any
of the Press offices, and the popular series, gift books, &c., are always
displayed. It is hoped before long to increase the space available for
this purpose in the Oxford Depository, and to exhibit there all Clarendon
Press books, arranged by subjects as in the Catalogue, so that members of
the University and visitors may be able to inspect at one time and place
all the books offered in any subject that may concern them. It is hoped
to find room for separate exhibits of school-books, maps, and ‘juvenile’
books, so that the busy schoolmaster, with half an hour to spare in
Oxford, may make a rapid survey of the contents of the Educational
catalogue.
§ 9. _The Press and its Authors_
The Index to the General Catalogue contains the names of some three
thousand living authors and editors. With almost all of these the Press
deals direct, and not through agents, and their friendly co-operation is
of immense service to the Delegates and their officers both in planning
books and in securing for them the widest publicity.
Many of the books accepted by the Press are such as in the ordinary way
of business would not secure a publisher except under subvention from the
author or some favourer of learning; and of these the remuneration (or
at least the direct remuneration; for the publication of solid books,
like the knowledge of Greek in former times, ‘not infrequently leads to
positions of emolument’) is recognized as being nominal, and necessarily
inadequate to the labour and skill lavished upon the work. But for books
commanding a remunerative sale, if they are of a suitable kind, the Press
is prepared to pay the full market value; and it is believed that not
many of its authors are dissatisfied with the bargains they have made.
‘It is an immense advantage to an author to be printed by a famous
Press’, is the opinion of a veteran of letters, whose name appears in
many publishers’ catalogues. It is the aim of the Oxford Press to place
at its authors’ service its capacity for accurate and beautiful printing
and binding, the goodwill attached to the University imprint, and the
selling power enjoyed by its very large organization in the United
Kingdom and throughout the world. Publication by the Press gives to
an author the further security that his book will not be remaindered,
pulped, or allowed to go out of print on the mere ground that it does not
enjoy a rapid sale.
It is still sometimes said that ‘the Press does not advertise’. It
is believed that Oxford books, in an exceptional degree, advertise
themselves and each other—‘the Oxford book’, says an American
advertisement, ‘is half sold already’; but the magnitude and variety
of its business enable the Press to maintain an elaborate organization
of ‘publicity’, which directs its efforts both to the booksellers and
to the public at large. It relies largely upon the distribution, in
many thousands of copies annually, of its catalogues and bulletins, on
the direct dispatch of prospectuses to a large yet carefully selected
constituency of buyers in various fields, and on the incalculable factor
of public and private discussion. The value of judicious newspaper
advertisement is not overlooked, as readers of the _Times Literary
Supplement_ well know.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
§ 10. _Bibles and Prayer Books_
Some account has already been given of the exercise by the University
of its privilege of printing ‘the King’s books’ in early times. The
modern history of the printing and publishing of the Bible and the
Book of Common Prayer is a large subject. The University of Oxford,
like the other privileged printers, has appreciated the obligations
attached to the privilege as well as the opportunities which it affords.
Every attention has been paid to accuracy and excellence of printing
and binding, to the provision of editions suited to every purpose and
every eyesight, and to the efficient and economical distribution of
the books all over the world at low prices. In all these respects a
standard has been reached which is unknown in any other kind of printing
and publishing, and which is only made possible by long experience,
continuous production, and intensive specialization. The modern Bible
is so convenient to read and to handle that its bulk is not always
realized; it is actually more than four times as long as _David
Copperfield_. A reference Bible is, also, a highly complicated piece
of printing. Accuracy is secured by the employment of highly-skilled
compositors and readers—a new Bible is ‘read’ from beginning to end many
times—and by the use of the best material processes; for all Bibles are
printed from copper plates on the most modern machines, and the sheets
are carefully scrutinized as they come from the press. The Oxford Press
offers a guinea for the discovery of a misprint; but very few guineas
have been earned.
The bulk and weight of Bibles are kept down by the use of very thin and
opaque paper, specially made at the Press Mill at Wolvercote. The use of
such paper, and especially of the Oxford India paper, the combination in
which of thinness with opacity has never been equalled, may be said to
have revolutionized the printing of Bibles, by making possible the use of
large clear type in a book of moderate size and weight.
Of the Prayer Book as of the Bible a large number of editions is offered
to suit all fashions and purposes, and this in spite of the serious risks
arising from the liability to change of the ‘royal’ prayers. A demise of
the Crown, or the marriage of a Prince of Wales, makes it necessary to
print a large number of cancel sheets, which have to be substituted for
the old sheets in all copies held in stock or in the hands of booksellers.
A hundred years ago there were nineteen Oxford Bibles and twenty-one
editions of the Book of Common Prayer. There are now more than a hundred
of each. The Revised Version of the Bible, the copyright of which belongs
to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge jointly, is also published in
a large variety of editions.
[Illustration]
§ 11. _Clarendon Press Books_
By Clarendon Press Books are meant the learned, educational, and other
‘Standard’ works produced under the close supervision of the Delegates
and their Oxford Secretariate, and printed at Oxford. These books have a
long history, and the Catalogue contains very many titles which have been
continuously on sale for nearly a century. The Coptic New Testament of
Wilkins, published in 1716, is believed to have been continuously on sale
at the original price of 12_s._ 6_d._ until the last copy was sold in
1907, only a few years short of the second century. The current edition
of the General Catalogue mentions as ‘the oldest Oxford book still on
sale’ another edition of the Coptic New Testament by Woide, published in
1799 and now sold for two guineas; but it has since been noticed that an
injustice had been done, and that pride of place should have been given
to the Gothic Gospel, a magnificently printed quarto published in 1750,
of which some dozen copies (at 30_s._) still remain.
These are extreme examples; they are, however, the result not of oblivion
or of indifference, but of a policy which has long been and is still
being pursued. The Press produces many works of learning which are so
securely based that it is known that the demand, however small, will
persist as long as there are copies unsold; and it is the practice of the
Press to print from type large editions of such books. Clarendon Press
books are neither wasted nor sold as remainders, and when a book goes
out of print, some natural tears are shed.
This is one end of the scale; at the other are books commanding a large
and rapid sale, books like the _Oxford Book of English Verse_ or the
_Concise Oxford Dictionary_ and _livres de circonstance_ like _Why We are
at War_, which was published in September 1914 and in a few months went
through twelve impressions and was translated into six foreign languages.
Books of this kind are produced in mass, as cheaply as is consistent
with a high standard of workmanship, and are sold all over the world in
competition with rival publications and by the employment of appropriate
methods of advertisement.
Between these two classes lies a great mass of miscellaneous books, too
general in character to admit of description here. They are in many
languages, ancient and modern, of the East and of the West; of all
fields of knowledge, divine, human, and natural; and of all stages of
history from the Stone Age to the Great War. It follows necessarily that
Clarendon Press books appeal to widely different publics and call for the
application of various instruments of distribution and publicity. All,
however, benefit by the widely diffused appreciation of the standards
of scholarship and of literary form which the Press has set itself to
uphold. The public expects much of any Oxford book, and the satisfaction
of that expectation is often onerous; but the necessary effort is
justified by the results—‘the Oxford book is half sold already’.
III
THE PRESS ABROAD
§ 1. _The Press in India_
The activities of the Press in India are of relatively recent date.
Until 1912, when a branch was opened in Bombay, Oxford books had been
accessible only to those who were determined to procure them. The
existence of a distributing centre made it possible to reach more
directly the educational and the general public. But it early became
apparent to the Manager—Mr. E. V. Rieu of Balliol College—that the
educational needs of India could only to a small extent be met by direct
importation; that it was necessary to adapt existing books to the special
requirements of the country, and to create new books similar in kind.
In the course of a few years many such books were produced, at first
chiefly in England, but later to an increasing degree in India itself. By
1918 at least a dozen native presses were engaged in printing and binding
for the Branch. These books range from ‘simplified classics’ to editions
of Shakespeare’s plays, from school geographies to handbooks for students
of medicine and law. At the same time the sale of more advanced Oxford
books was largely increased. A brief description is given elsewhere of
the books produced at Oxford upon the history and art of India as well as
upon its classical literature and its religions. Books like Mr. Vincent
Smith’s _Early History of India_ and his _Fine Art in India_ command a
wide sale among the educated natives of India.
Another field of enterprise is in vernacular education. Here the
opportunities are vast, but the difficulties are great, for in most
provinces many languages are spoken, and no one press is adequately
equipped with the numerous founts of type required to deal with the
vernaculars of India as a whole. The Branch was therefore fortunate in
being, in 1916, invited by the Government of the Central Provinces to
produce a series of Readers—in Hindi and Marathi—for use in schools
throughout the province. At that time no paper could be imported from
England, and the staff of the Branch was depleted by war. Nevertheless,
within a year over half a million volumes had been written, printed, and
illustrated, and were ready for distribution over a country nearly twice
as large as England and Wales.
The activities of the Branch in placing the issues of the War before
Indian readers in a true light attracted in 1918 the attention of
Government; and the Branch was engaged by the Central Publicity Bureau to
produce an illustrated War Magazine and a mass of pamphlets in English
and the vernacular tongues.
In spite of these preoccupations the Branch has been able to emulate
the activities of the Press at home by co-operating with learned bodies
in India to produce books of scientific value. Notable among its
publications in this kind are the historical treatises of Mr. Rawlinson,
Mr. Kincaid, Mr. Mookerji, and other writers, and the economic studies
published on behalf of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.
Mention may also be made here of the _Classics of Indian History_ which
are being issued by the Press. In reviewing the latest volume of the
series—Meadows Taylor’s _Story of My Life_—The Times Literary Supplement
says: ‘It is one of those books from which history hereafter will be
written. The great books—in one sense or other—like Colonel Mark Wilks’s
_Historical Sketches of Southern India_, Grant Duff’s _History of the
Mahrattas_, Tod’s _Rajasthan_, Broughton’s _Letters from a Mahratta
Camp_, must be supplemented not only by the native records, which are
more and more becoming accessible, but by the personal narratives of
Englishmen who lived in out-of-the-way places and entered into the
lives of the rural inhabitants of India. Beside Colonel Sleeman’s
_Reminiscences_ must be put the autobiography of Meadows Taylor, a
much superior book.’ Of the books mentioned by _The Times_, Sleeman’s
and Tod’s have already been issued, uniform with Meadows Taylor’s,
Dubois’s _Hindu Manners_, Bernier’s _Travels_, Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali’s
_Mussulmanns_, and Cunningham’s _Sikhs_; editions of Grant Duff and
Broughton are in preparation.
Mr. Rieu, when in 1919 reasons of health compelled him to retire, had in
a few years proved himself a real pioneer. He had immensely increased
the volume of business done by the Branch, and had opened up new and
promising fields. His successor, Major G. F. J. Cumberlege, D.S.O.,
of Worcester College, who was accompanied by Mr. N. L. Carrington, of
Christ Church, took over a successful and growing business. The original
premises in Bombay had already been outgrown, and new offices opened in
Elphinstone Circle. The increase of staff has made it possible to open
a new branch in Calcutta—a sub-branch in Madras already existed—and it
is confidently hoped that in the near future the business done in Oxford
books, and adaptations of them, will be increased in volume, and that the
service rendered by Oxford to the Indian Empire will be further enhanced
by the activities of its Press.
[Illustration: THE BOMBAY BRANCH]
[Illustration: THE TORONTO BRANCH]
§ 2. _The Press in Canada_
The Oxford University Press Canadian Branch was founded in 1904 at 25
Richmond Street West, Toronto. The manager was Mr. S. B. Gundy, who still
presides at the same address; but the building was destroyed by fire in
1905 and completely reconstructed.
Although Canada has still a relatively small population, scattered
over an immense area, the volume of business done by the Branch is
substantial, and it continues to grow. The sale of Oxford Bibles,
Clarendon Press books, Medical and Elementary books is supplemented by
the sale of books published in Canada and the United States, for which
Mr. Gundy acts as agent. Thus the Branch sells all the publications of
the great American house of Doubleday, Page and Company; and through this
connexion it has recently become the sole publisher in Canada of the
works of Mr. Rudyard Kipling.
Among the more notable Canadian enterprises of the Press are the Church
of England Hymn Book (the _Book of Common Praise_), published in
1909, the large stocks of which caused Mr. Gundy ‘to overflow into a
neighbouring barber shop’, and the new edition of the Presbyterian _Book
of Praise_, produced in defiance of submarines and other obstacles in
1917. The editor, the Rev. Alexander Macmillan, carried the manuscript
across the Atlantic in small packets sewn into his clothes.
§ 3. _The Press in Australasia_
This part of the business was first developed by visits regularly
made from London by Mr. E. R. Bartholomew, who in 1908 became manager
of the Branch then established at Cathedral Buildings, Melbourne.
Australia is not only many thousands of miles from the great centres of
book-production, but is itself a land of great distances, as yet but
sparsely populated; and this creates difficulties for both publishers and
booksellers. It is remarkable how far these obstacles have been overcome;
and if regard is paid to the number and character of the population,
Australia, and New Zealand no less, have a right to be proud of the
quantity and quality of the books they buy.
The Branch has paid attention to the special needs of Australian
education, and in co-operation with the universities and schools has
produced a number of successful text-books.
It acts as agent for some of the leading British publishers, including
the houses of Murray, Heinemann, Black, Chapman and Hall, and Mowbray;
and for the large publishing business of Messrs. Angus and Robertson of
Sydney.
[Illustration: THE MELBOURNE BRANCH]
[Illustration: MARKHAM’S BUILDINGS, CAPE TOWN
in which the South African Branch is situated]
§ 4. _The Press in South Africa_
The South African Office of the Press is at Markham’s Buildings, Adderley
Street, Cape Town. Mr. C. R. Mellor, the present Representative, was
appointed to that post in March 1915. From his office at Cape Town Mr.
Mellor visits the principal booksellers, not only in the Cape Province,
but in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal.
§ 5. _The Press in China_
The Chinese Agency of the Press is at C 445 Honan Road, Shanghai, of
which Mr. T. Leslie is the present Representative. The first agent in
China for the Press was the Christian Literature Society of Shanghai, the
agency being started in 1913. Mr. Leslie, who had been manager of that
Society, took over the Press agency in 1917. Stocks of all Oxford books
likely to be in demand in China are held in Shanghai.
§ 6. _The Press in Scandinavia_
For many years before the war a traveller from Amen Corner visited the
Continent annually, but business in Scandinavia developed so rapidly
after the Armistice that it was found desirable to open a Branch, and
premises were accordingly secured in Copenhagen, Mr. H. Bohun Beet, the
Continental traveller of the Press, being appointed manager. The Branch
was opened in August 1920, at St. Kongensgade 40 H, close to the King’s
Palace. The Branch represents also Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton and the
Medici Society.
§ 7. _The Press in the United States_
The sale of Oxford books in the United States began long before the
foundation of the _American Branch_. It is recorded that ‘the growth of
the business was hindered by the Civil War, but after the restoration
of peace it grew rapidly’; and that a landmark in its progress was the
publication of editions of the American Book of Common Prayer.
The foundation of the Oxford University Press American Branch, an
institution which has made the name of Oxford familiar throughout the
Union, was due to the foresight and enterprise of Mr. Henry Frowde.
Acting on his advice the Delegates of the Press authorized the formation
of a Corporation in the State of New York, and the Branch in 1896 opened
premises at 91 Fifth Avenue, under the management of the late Mr. John
Armstrong. In the following year Mr. Armstrong added to the Bibles and
other books, previously sold by Messrs. Nelson, the Clarendon Press
publications, previously sold by the Macmillan Company. The business
grew rapidly in Mr. Armstrong’s hands, and in 1908 moved ‘up town’ to
the premises it now occupies at 35 West 32nd Street. Mr. Armstrong died
in 1915, and was succeeded by Mr. W. W. McIntosh, one of the original
members of the staff.
[Illustration: THIRTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK
The New York Branch is situated in the Central Building on the right]
SHOW ROOMS AT THE NEW YORK BRANCH
[Illustration: Bible Show Room]
[Illustration: Clarendon Press Show Room]
The main function of the Branch has always been that of keeping the
American public acquainted with Oxford books, both sacred and secular,
and of supplying the books without avoidable delay. To this end it
has been necessary to hold large stocks in New York, and to maintain
an expert staff which is in touch with the book-stores and with the
universities, the schools, and the book-buying public at large. The
Branch has its own catalogues and its own advertisements, and it has been
able to make Oxford Bibles and Clarendon Press books known and valued
throughout the United States. The Branch, however, is not merely an
importer; it has long recognized that many Oxford products are capable
of useful adaptation to special American requirements, and that such
adaptation is consistent with the preservation of what Americans have
themselves called ‘the Oxford stamp’. This aspect of the activities of
the Press in America is shown by the large number of Bibles which are
manufactured (‘made’ is the American idiom) in the United States—among
these the now famous _Scofield_ Reference Bible is conspicuous—and also
by books written—or at least rewritten—for American requirements. The
Branch, in co-operation with American scholars, has produced valuable
series of text-books for schools and universities—the _Oxford English
Series_, the _Oxford French Series_, and the _Oxford German Series_.
Even more important, perhaps, are adaptations of Oxford books of tried
merit. Thus the _Oxford Loose-Leaf Surgery_ derives from a (British)
Oxford original (one of the _Oxford Medical Publications_), but has
important differences in substance as well as in its novel form. This
very successful work is now being followed by the _Oxford Loose-Leaf
Medicine_, edited by Dr. Henry Christian and Sir James Mackenzie with
the help of leading physicians on both sides of the Atlantic. To promote
co-operation of this kind in medical science was a great part of the
life-work of William Osler, who, as Regius Professor at Oxford, and a
leading promoter of the Oxford Medical Publications, may be described as
the founder of the medical activities of the Oxford Press as they are now
carried on in Oxford, in London, in New York, and in Toronto.
Another work of adaptation, now in progress, illustrates further the
possibilities of Anglo-American co-operation. The _Concise Oxford
Dictionary_ of current English, adapted from the great Oxford Dictionary,
has been and is very widely used throughout the British Empire and by
students of English in foreign countries. But its spelling, and certain
other features, were found to disqualify the book for general use in the
United States; and a special American edition is now in preparation, the
adapter of which is Mr. G. Van Santvoord, of Oriel College, Oxford, and
Yale University.
The Press is publisher, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, many of whose books have been printed
at Oxford. Special mention may be made of the first volumes, printed
at the Press and recently published, of the British Section of the
great _Economic and Social History of the World War_ undertaken by the
Endowment. These volumes are by Professors Keith and Bowley and Mr. J. A.
Salter.
IV
OXFORD BOOKS
§ 1. _Oxford Series_
At one time Oxford books were produced almost always at the instance
of an author; and many Oxford books are still so produced. A scholar
having devoted, it may be, many years of his life to a subject which
he has made his own, applies to the University Press for publication
of his researches; and such a claim is often admitted as irresistible.
In modern times, however, the need for organization by the publisher
has become increasingly apparent. Many books which if published in
isolation would reach only a small public are found capable of a wider
usefulness when issued as part of a larger plan; and thus the initiative
in publishing passes more and more into the hands of the professional
commanding the advice of a body of experts. School-books, reprints of
the Classics, text-books of the applied sciences, and books of the nature
of Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias are now almost always conducted in
this way by co-operative enterprise.
The number of such homogeneous series promoted by the Press during the
last twenty years is large, even if all school-books are excluded. The
_Oxford English Dictionary_ (which is of earlier origin) bulks so large
in the public eye as somewhat to obscure all humbler enterprises; but
it does not stand alone. In English literature the Press has built up
in a quarter of a century a whole library of uniform series, all of
respectable dimensions. The _Oxford English Texts_ are library editions
of famous authors edited after exhaustive examination of the materials,
in print and in manuscript, and handsomely printed from type; the _Tudor
and Stuart Library_ consists of first editions and exact reprints of
famous books of that period, printed in the types of the period on
paper calculated to last for many centuries more; these books are now
finding their way into the second-hand catalogues and the collections
of connoisseurs; the _Oxford Library of Prose and Poetry_ is a series
of little books for fanciers, offering especially the classics of the
Romantic Revival in a form approximating to that of the originals; the
_Oxford Poets_ claim to be the last word for accuracy of text, condensed
yet fine printing, and the lowest price compatible with these qualities;
the _Oxford Standard Authors_ offer the same texts as the Oxford Poets,
together with many prose classics, in a cheaper form; the average volume
containing nearly 600 pages of close yet legible print. Finally, the
_World’s Classics_ furnish a collection of over two hundred of the most
famous English books in a very handy form, still maintained in print
as far as possible in spite of the costs of production, which make it
increasingly difficult to keep any but the most popular books on sale in
a cheap series.
None of these series has been created by the simple expedient of taking
an existing edition and sending it to the printer—a plan too commonly
followed, as is well known to every one who has ever investigated the
text of a well-known author, and has found that each edition contains
almost all the errors of its predecessors and adds fresh errors of its
own. The Oxford texts are the result of the laborious co-operation
of editor, publisher, and printer, involving the choice of the most
authoritative original—very often the collation of a number of printed
originals and sometimes of manuscripts as well—expert attention to
the problems both editorial and typographical of which the successful
solution produces a well-designed book, and finally scrupulous diligence
in the elimination of error. The substantial accuracy of Oxford texts is
widely recognized, and is known to be due to the united vigilance of the
editors, the publishers (themselves scholars and sometimes editors), and
the printers. It is less well known how complex and difficult are the
problems which the modern editor has to solve. The scientific editing
of English texts is indeed a relatively recent growth, and depends upon
the application of principles which in the field of Greek and Latin
textual criticism have been elaborated in the course of centuries. It
is thus no accident that the work done in English editing in the last
five-and-twenty years has been largely in the hands of scholars trained
in the Oxford school of _Literae Humaniores_, and has synchronized with
the production of the _Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis_.
This series, now popularly known as the _Oxford Classical Texts_, is the
only large series of critical texts of Greek and Latin authors produced
in recent times outside Germany and able to hold its own in competition
with its great German rivals. The texts, which now fill nearly eighty
volumes and include the most important writers of the ‘classical’
periods of Greek and Roman literature, have been based upon much fresh
examination of the manuscript originals. Some of the editors, indeed,
have devoted years to this kind of investigation; the labours of Mr.
Allen on the manuscripts of Homer and of Professor Clark and Sir William
Peterson on those of Cicero have secured for their authors a permanent
place in the long history of classical scholarship.
The aim of the series is to give the best text which the examination
of the manuscripts in their relation to each other affords, and to
provide in a brief _apparatus criticus_ sufficient information to show
the evidence on which the editor has based his decision. Conjectural
emendations are mentioned in the notes when they are considered
plausible, but are not admitted to the text except where they reach
a high degree of probability. This principle, which is mainly due to
the authority of the late Ingram Bywater, has commended itself in the
course of years even to those who were at first disposed to think it too
austere, and has greatly enhanced the permanent value of the series,
which before the war was finding its way into Germany itself. A famous
German publisher went so far indeed as to address to Oxford (on the eve
of the war) a letter of remonstrance on the price of the series, which
was described as too low for its value.
The _Oxford Library of Translations_ consists mainly of prose versions
of Greek and Latin authors. These have not been made to order or in
accordance with any single principle of translation, but have been
produced at the instance of scholars unable to deny themselves the
satisfaction of translating a favourite author. This, which is perhaps
the best guarantee of excellence, accounts for the miscellaneous
constitution of the series, which has been enlarged by degrees as a happy
conjunction of author and translator chanced to present itself, and from
the same cause admits some interesting authors seldom or never included
in series of translations made upon a less elastic plan.
Another series of translations is the great collection of the _Sacred
Books of the East_, which was begun many years ago by the late Max Müller
and reached its fiftieth and concluding volume in 1910. The value of
these translations to Orientalists is shown by the steady sale, which
after forty years is still increasing, and by the high prices asked for
the few volumes which are now unfortunately out of print.
History, and the subjects akin thereto, afford less scope for homogeneous
series than does the editing of ancient and modern classical literature;
and it has been the policy of the Press rather to secure monographs of
unique authority in special fields than to compile works of encyclopaedic
information. A few examples will serve to illustrate the range and
importance of the Oxford books produced in this way which have become
classics in their subject: in the History of Antiquity, Sir Arthur
Evans’s _Scripta Minoa_, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson’s _Palaeography_,
Vincent Smith’s _Early History of India_; in the Fine Arts, Barclay
Head’s _Historia Numorum_, Vincent Smith’s _Fine Art in India_, Dalton’s
_Byzantine Art_; in Constitutional History and Law, Anson’s _Law and
Custom of the Constitution_ and _Law of Contract_, Sir Courtenay
Ilbert’s _Government of India_, Lord Bryce’s _Studies in History and
Jurisprudence_, Hall’s _International Law_, Prof. Keith’s _Responsible
Government_, Sir Erskine Holland’s _Jurisprudence_; in British History,
Stubbs’s _Constitutional History of England_, Freeman’s _Norman
Conquest_, Sir Paul Vinogradoff’s _Villainage in England_ and _English
Society in the Eleventh Century_, Sir Charles Oman’s _Peninsular War_; in
European History, Finlay’s _Greece_, Hodgkin’s _Italy and Her Invaders_;
in Geography, Prof. Beazley’s _Dawn of Modern Geography_ and Mr. R. L.
Poole’s great _Historical Atlas_.
Books of this kind best represent the type at which Oxford has aimed
in the historical and human sciences, and it is to the promotion of
such works that the resources of the Press have in this field been most
advantageously applied. When, however, the progress of a subject and
the enthusiasm of an editor have combined to suggest another way, the
opportunity has been taken of organizing research upon a common plan.
Notable results of such combined endeavour are the _Oxford Survey of the
British Empire_ and the _Historical Geography of the Dominions_ promoted
by the late Prof. Herbertson and by Sir Charles Lucas of the Colonial
Office respectively. The former work, containing in six volumes a general
and a particular survey of the geographical, economic, and administrative
aspects of the Empire and its constituent parts, was completed within a
short time and published within a few weeks of the outbreak of the war.
In an important sense therefore it cannot become out of date, since it
affords a conspectus of conditions as they existed at the culmination
of the former age, to which it will always be necessary to refer as a
standard of comparison. The other series, which is in seven volumes
(comprising twice as many separate parts), has had a longer and more
chequered history, the march of events since the early years of the
century, when publication began, having made necessary frequent revision
and reconstitution. The work is still in progress, and India has recently
been added to its scope.
[Illustration]
A more recent collection arose out of the demand during the war for a
compendious survey of the history of the belligerent powers. To satisfy
the demand was one of the pieces of war work undertaken by the Press,
and the evident usefulness of the volumes having survived the war has
led to the establishment of a series on a permanent and wider plan,
including Histories of the Nations and treatises of similar scope on
leading questions of International politics. The series now covers
France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, the Balkans, Serbia, Russia, Prussia,
China, and Japan, with books on the Eastern Question, Diplomacy,
Nineteenth-Century Treaties, and other topics. Many of the volumes have
been frequently reprinted, and additions are in preparation.
Not the least interesting of Oxford books written by a number of
contributors on a uniform plan is _Shakespeare’s England, an Account
of the Life and Manners of his Age_, published in two volumes in the
centenary year 1916. The book contains an Ode by the Poet Laureate, a
long essay on the Age of Elizabeth by Sir Walter Raleigh, and some forty
special articles by the first authorities.
Another co-operative enterprise is the _Oxford History of Music_, which
in six volumes surveys the whole subject from the beginning to the time
of Wagner; it is not a collection of biographies, but a history of music
as such—of origins, tendencies, and evolution. The authors include the
late H. E. Wooldridge, the late Sir Hubert Parry, and Sir Henry Hadow,
whose enlightened enthusiasm has done so much for the study of music in
England.
§ 2. _Oxford Books on the Empire_
Oxford is proud to consider itself as _par excellence_ the Imperial
University. The administration of the Empire owes much to Oxford men, as
the University in its turn owes much to her sons from overseas. Imperial
subjects are an important and growing branch of study at Oxford; and
the Press, true to its tradition of building upon the foundations of
experience, has in time put together an imposing collection as well of
the classics of colonization and administration as of new and original
treatises by scholars versed in its theory and practice. These books
being very diverse have not been confined within the limits of a series
uniform in size or appearance; but they have a real unity, and deserve
it is believed to be acquired as a whole by every library with any
pretensions to an imperial character. Among the most important volumes
may be enumerated Wakefield’s _View of the Art of Colonization_, first
published in 1849, Lord Durham’s _Report on British North America_,
Cornewall Lewis’s _Government of Dependencies_; and (among modern
treatises) Prof. Keith’s _Responsible Government_ (in its present form
published as recently as 1912, yet already an established classic), and
the same author’s _Imperial Unity_, Prof Egerton’s _Federations and
Unions_, Sir Courtenay Ilbert’s _Government of India_.
The Press is so strong in books on _India_ that it has seemed well to
issue a special catalogue bringing together a mass of books which in the
General Catalogue are listed under a variety of subject-headings. These
include a large and important section published by the Press under the
patronage of the Secretary of State—notably the _Imperial Gazetteer of
India_ in twenty-six volumes, the noble series of documents on the early
history of ‘John Company’ compiled at the India Office, and the sumptuous
publication of Sir Aurel Stein’s discoveries in Turkestan; but they
include also a whole library of books produced by the Press at its sole
charges and dealing with the history of India from the Empire of Asoka to
the formulation of Dyarchy, with the geography, politics, and economics
of modern India, and with the religion and literature, the fine art, and
the music of Hindostan. The production by the Press in India itself of
vernacular and other educational books has recently made great progress.
(See also p. 65 for some notice of the series of _Classics of Indian
History_.)
§ 3. _The Oxford Standard_
The standard of scholarship, accuracy, and literary excellence which
the Delegates maintain in the books published under their authority
is believed to be as high as that attempted by any other publisher
in the world. Its maintenance imposes upon the Delegates much labour
and expense; but the effort is repaid in the reputation which Oxford
books enjoy in the public estimation. The supervision exercised by the
Delegates, both personally and through their advisers, is not limited to
the initial judgement passed upon a book offered to them for publication;
it extends through the whole process of revision in manuscript and
in proof. When a book is favourably considered, an expert’s detailed
report is very often laid before the author, who is asked to consider
the suggestions made and to confer with the Delegates’ advisers; and
this process of scrutiny is frequently far-reaching, the criticism being
invited at one stage or another of a number of specialists in various
fields. In this way many, perhaps most, of the books produced by the
Press have received substantial improvement; and not a few have undergone
something like transformation. To these benefits abundant testimony is
borne in the prefaces of authors; more, perhaps, reposes in the archives
in Walton Street.
The technical services rendered to scholarship by the Clarendon Press
proof-readers are likewise commemorated in many a preface. The late
Mr. J. C. Pembrey, who in 1847 read Wilson’s _Sanskrit Grammar_, and
in 1916 read Prof. Macdonell’s _Vedic Grammar_ for press, was well
known to three generations of Oriental scholars; the late Mr. W. F. R.
Shilleto did much to secure accuracy and uniformity in the series of
_Oxford Classical Texts_; and Mr. George Ostler has left the marks of
his vigilance upon many editions of the English classics. Long training
in a severe school develops unusual powers; and authors are sometimes
startled by instances of what seems beyond natural acumen. An author who
had misquoted _Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis_ in the usual
form, was naturally astonished when the reader inquired in the margin
‘Should it not be _et nos_?’, which is of course unmetrical. The reader
was right, nevertheless; but the source of his information remained
obscure. In fields less recondite than this the authority of the readers
is generally recognized; many editors have confessed that in the matter
of Greek accents they should not think of disputing it.
The attention thus paid to the claims of scholarship and accuracy brings
doubtless unmixed benefits to learning and education. To the Press as
a business concern the blessing is less unequivocal. The Delegates’
resources are not without limits; and they are sometimes embarrassed by
the ambitions of learned authors from all parts of the world, to whom
nothing but the imprint of the Clarendon Press seems an adequate reward.
They are obliged to pick and choose, and sometimes to decline a proposal
which would attract them if it had fewer rivals. Another imputation is
less deserved. A distinguished American who had been invited to dine in
an Oxford College confessed afterwards that as he entered the room his
knees knocked at the thought that ‘all these Fellows talked Latin’;
and the public is sometimes frightened away from an Oxford book by the
apprehension that it will be found full of Greek quotations. There is in
fact no necessary connexion between accuracy and pedantry; and even Dons
are often men of the world, well acquainted with the limitations of the
average intelligence. No one need be afraid that an Oxford book on any
ordinary subject will be any more abstruse than another book, though its
facts will perhaps be better authenticated and its arguments more closely
reasoned. The booksellers know this; and in reply to a customer’s inquiry
‘Is this a good book?’ have been heard to reply ‘Why it’s an Oxford book’.
Another fallacy which dies hard is that Oxford books are dear. This
is perhaps no more than a hasty inference from the fact that Oxford
produces an exceptionally large proportion of books which from their
nature cannot be cheap. No one would expect to buy Liddell and Scott’s
Greek Lexicon, or the _Index Kewensis_, for a few shillings; but these
books and many like them are really inexpensive, if regard is paid to
the number of words they contain. The Oxford Dictionary itself is sold
at an almost nominal price. Many of the books, however, which appeal to
a narrow public are properly priced higher than if they could be sold in
large numbers; for the price of a book depends mainly upon two things—the
number of words it contains and the number of people who will buy it.
The art of publishing lies in nothing so much as in estimating whether a
book is more likely to sell say, 750 copies at 15_s._ or 5,000 at 5_s._
The policy of the Press has always been elastic in this respect; and very
many of its books are among the cheapest in their kind.
[Illustration: Specimen of work done by M. Burghers, Engraver to the
University about 1700]
[Illustration: Specimen of work done in the studio of the Clarendon Press
to-day]
[Illustration: From Lily’s Latin Grammar, Oxford 1692]
[Illustration: One of the drawings by Henry Ford from _A School History
of England_ by C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling, 1911]
§ 4. _Illustrated Books_
The publication by the Press of beautifully illustrated books is mainly
a development of comparatively recent years, and it has been furthered
by the progress of collotype printing at Oxford. The catalogue now
includes a large number of sumptuous monographs on artistic subjects.
In its facsimiles of manuscripts and rare printed books, published on
its own account or for the British Museum, the Press has done much to
make accessible to scholars the treasures of the great collections.
Well-known examples are the magnificent collotype reproduction of the
New Testament part of the _Codex Sinaiticus_ (from negatives made at St.
Petersburg under the old régime; negatives were fortunately made of the
Old Testament part as well, and the reproduction of the whole of this
most famous of all manuscripts will before long be completed); and the
complete collotype reproduction of the Shakespearian corpus, consisting
of the Folio of 1623, which went out of print on publication in 1912, and
the _Poems and Pericles_ from the first editions, still on sale.
The Press has also published very numerous reproductions of works of
art of all kinds, partly by way of illustrated catalogues of special
collections or _genres_ (such as the three folio volumes of Oxford
Drawings by the old masters, the numerous coin catalogues, and the cheap
collection of British Historical Portraits in half-tone); partly in
the form of profusely illustrated monographs, which moreover are all
scientific works by experts and not mere collections of pretty pictures
with illustrative letterpress.
These works are of great importance to students and collectors, and a
select list is appended: Head’s _Historia Numorum_, Gardner’s _Ancient
Coinage_, Beazley’s and other books on Greek Vases, Hill’s _Renaissance
Medals_, Dalton’s _Byzantine Art_, Maunde Thompson’s _Palaeography_,
Murray’s _History of Chess_, ffoulkes’s _Armour and Weapons_, Rivoira’s
_Moslem Architecture_, Vincent Smith’s _Fine Art in India_, Sir Aurel
Stein’s _Khotan_ and _Serindia_ and other special works on Eastern Art,
the important series of monographs on English Church Art written or
edited by the late Francis Bond, with his comprehensive _Introduction to
English Church Architecture_ in two volumes, and many more too numerous
to cite, particularly the great wealth of British Museum catalogues.
A very welcome recent accession to the catalogue is supplied by the
sumptuous monographs on Italian Masters produced by the Harvard and
Princeton University Presses.
The use of illustration is, however, by no means confined to facsimiles
and works on the arts. The modern productions of the Press have made an
increasing use of illustration both as an embellishment and as a medium
of information. School-books in particular are now lavishly illustrated
with portraits, maps, diagrams, and other reproductions, often either of
modern photographs or of old cuts and engravings carefully chosen, so
that the actual men and things of former times may be faithfully mirrored.
The Press prints for the British Museum and other London collections,
as well as for the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, very large numbers of
postcards in collotype, by means of which a knowledge of our national art
treasures is being widely spread.
§ 5. _Official Publications_
The Press prints for the official purposes of the University the
_University Gazette_ (recording the official Acts and Agenda of the
University), the annual _Calendar_ (primarily a list of the members
of the University), the _Statuta Universitatis_ and the _Examination
Statutes_ (both published every year), and a number of smaller
pamphlets &c. giving special information. The numerous and far-reaching
changes, made necessary by the war and the fruits of the war, have
hitherto precluded the republication of the useful and popular _Oxford
University Handbook_, last published in 1915. Meanwhile, the pamphlet
of General_ Information_ (on admission, residence, scholarships, and
some examinations) will be found valuable by those, at home and abroad,
who wish to form a general conception of the opportunities afforded to
students and the requirements which they must fulfil.
There are many other official books, both utilitarian and antiquarian.
Employers and others have often occasion to inquire what places a member
of the University obtained in the class-lists. The information, not
always available elsewhere, is given, from the beginning to 1900, in
the _Historical Register of the University_, and for the years 1901-20,
in the _Supplement_ to that work recently published. Benefactors and
others interested in University Finance are directed to the _Abstract of
the Accounts of the University and Colleges_ published annually. Other
publications of local usefulness include the _Oxford University Pocket
Diary_ for the academical year, and the terminal list of all _Resident
Members of the University_ (with addresses, telephone numbers, &c.).
The University twice during the war printed its _Roll of Service_, and in
1920 published the third and definitive edition: it contains the names,
fourteen thousand five hundred and sixty-one in number, of those members
of the University who served in the Military and Naval forces of the
Crown. The names of those who gave their lives, two thousand four hundred
and seventy-four in number, are distinguished by heavy type.
_The Oxford University Almanack_ has been printed annually since 1674,
and of the illustrations since 1716 the Press possesses the original
plates. By far the greater number are still on sale. Many of the recent
plates are of great interest and beauty; those for 1906-10, and that
for 1918, are collotypes from drawings made for the Almanack by Mr.
Muirhead Bone; most of the later issues are chromo-collotypes reproducing
water-colour drawings, preserved at Oxford, by J. M. W. Turner and other
artists of his time.
The historical books dealing with Oxford and published by the Press
include Mr. Madan’s _Oxford Books_, ‘1468’-1650, a work much esteemed by
bibliographers; Mr. Shadwell’s _Enactments in Parliament_ (concerning
Oxford, Cambridge, Winchester, Eton, and Westminster); Mrs. Poole’s
three volumes (one is out of print) of illustrated catalogues of Oxford
Portraits (all these published for, or in co-operation with, the Oxford
Historical Society); and, in a lighter vein, Mr. Lamborn’s popular
_Story of Architecture in Oxford Stone_ and handy guides, written by
experts, to the Bodleian, other Oxford Libraries, the Ashmolean Museum,
the University Museum (of Natural Science), and the picturesque Degree
Ceremony (by the Warden of Wadham). The Press offers also a _History of
Oxford Rowing_, and the collected _Orationes_ of the late Public Orator,
Dr. W. W. Merry, perhaps the only man of modern times who could make a
Latin speech intelligible to an audience of undergraduates and ladies.
Lord Curzon’s work on _University Reform_ published in 1909 is still on
sale.
§ 6. _The Oxford English Dictionary_
The work described on its title-page as _A New English Dictionary
on Historical Principles,_ and long known familiarly as _N.E.D._ or
_Murray’s Dictionary_, but now generally as the _Oxford Dictionary_,
has a continuous history of more than half a century. It was in 1857
that Dean Trench (afterwards Archbishop Trench) laid the foundation
of the work by calling the attention of the Philological Society to
the inadequacy of all existing English Dictionaries. He pointed out
that thousands of words which had become obsolete, but remained in the
national literature, had either escaped the diligence of lexicographers
or had been excluded by the limitations of their plan; and in especial
that no dictionary gave any account of the _history_ of words and their
senses; in none was it ascertained when a word was first used, when (if
obsolete) it had last been used, and how its senses had been developed.
The members of the Philological Society threw themselves eagerly into
the plan proposed for supplying these deficiencies, and an army of
volunteers set about the systematic examination of the whole body of
English literature. At length a dictionary was projected (in place of the
supplement first suggested, which it was realized would be much larger
than the works it was designed to supplement), and Mr. Herbert Coleridge
was appointed editor. Fresh volunteers were enlisted, and the work made
progress. But it could hardly have taken shape without the tireless
industry and indomitable courage of the next editor, Dr. Furnivall, who
saw, but did not shrink from, the immense preparatory labours yet to
be faced. Furnivall realized that an English Dictionary could not be
made until the roots of the language could be examined in the mass of
our early literature, which was then hardly known; and to provide this
essential he founded in 1864 the _Early English Text Society_—the long
list of whose publications, still growing, may be read in the Clarendon
Press Catalogue.
But even the enthusiasm of a Furnivall did not avail to prevent a growing
sense of despondency, when the work seemed to lengthen out indefinitely
with no promise of performance. No private publisher could be found to
undertake a work so vast. It was decided to invite the co-operation of
the Clarendon Press. The Philological Society and Dr. James Murray, who
had thrown himself into the work with an energy equal to Furnivall’s own,
and was by acclamation designated as editor, entered into negotiations
with the Delegates of the Press, and an agreement was signed.
It is fortunate that the magnitude of human undertakings is seldom
perceived by those who engage upon them. Coleridge had intimated that it
would be time to begin the Dictionary when a hundred thousand quotations
had been pigeon-holed. The efforts of Furnivall and Murray brought the
total to three and a half million quotations, selected by thirteen
hundred readers from the works of five thousand authors. The work of
accumulation has gone on for forty years since, and to-day the Dictionary
contains about one and three-quarter million _printed_ quotations,
selected from a greatly larger number. Dr. Murray himself agreed with
the Delegates for a work of between 6,000 and 7,000 pages. The total will
exceed 15,000. He expected to complete the book in ten years with a small
staff. To-day, thirty-five years after printing began, the work, to which
Murray himself contributed more than 7,000 pages, is being carried on by
three editors with twelve assistants; and the end is not yet.
It is impossible to value too highly the services of voluntary helpers
from the beginning to the present day. The completeness and accuracy of
the work, which is probably without a rival in any country or in any age,
could not have been secured except by editors of the greatest learning
and ability and by the training of a lifetime; but these qualities
would not have availed if the work had not been founded upon inductive
investigations of a range never before attempted. For the wealth of the
materials made available our gratitude is due to readers not only in the
United Kingdom but in all parts of the world, and notably in the United
States of America, where the Dictionary is regarded with affectionate
admiration as the common achievement of the English-speaking people.
Valuable, however, as the work of these voluntary helpers has been,
an even larger debt of gratitude is due to the faithful labours of
the editorial staff of assistants, some of whom can trace back their
term of service to the earliest years of the undertaking. To their
acumen, vigilance, and zeal have been and are due in large measure
the completeness of the evidence and the correctness of detail in the
presentation of words and their meanings.
Dr. Murray with his staff moved to Oxford in 1885, and there the work
has been continuously carried on, partly in the _Scriptorium_ attached
to Dr. Murray’s house, partly (and in recent years wholly) in the _Old
Ashmolean Building_, next door to the old Sheldonian Press and within
a stone’s throw of the Bodleian. Here, as a section of the alphabet
comes to be treated, the material is sifted, extracts from it are put
in order, fresh investigations, often laborious, are undertaken to
settle etymologies and doubtful points in the history of a word; copy
is prepared for the printer, and references are checked. The complete
preparation of the material involves researches of the most varied
nature, some of which lead the editors even beyond the confines of our
own language to novel and important discoveries.
The scope of the Dictionary, in the form which it finally assumed, is
thus stated in the preface to Volume I:—‘The aim of this dictionary is
to furnish an adequate account of the meaning, origin, and history of
English words now in general use, or known to have been in use at any
time during the last seven hundred years. It endeavours (1) to show, with
regard to each individual word, when, how, in what shape, and with what
signification, it became English; what development of form and meaning it
has since received; which of its uses have, in the course of time, become
obsolete, and which still survive; what new uses have since arisen, by
what processes, and when: (2) to illustrate these facts by a series of
quotations ranging from the first known occurrence of the word to the
latest, or down to the present day; the word being thus made to exhibit
its own history and meaning: and (3) to treat the etymology of each word
strictly on the basis of historical fact, and in accordance with the
methods and results of modern philological science.’
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE OLD ASHMOLEAN]
As the history of many English words begins with the Anglo-Saxon period,
and the ‘first known occurrence’ may be as early as the seventh century,
the period actually covered by hundreds of the articles in the Dictionary
is one of ten, eleven, or twelve centuries.
The extent to which the aim of the Dictionary has been accomplished
is not yet so widely known as it ought to be. Many discussions as to
the origin, history, and meaning of words are carried on in newspapers
and periodicals which could be decided at once by a reference to the
Dictionary. Inquirers spend much of their own and others’ time, and in
the end write to one of the editors, in quest of information which has
for years been available in the published volumes. Nor is it solely the
student of language who can profit by the use of the Dictionary, although
in this respect it is of unique value both for English and Continental
philologists. Every scholar and scientist is likely to find in it some
fresh light upon his own subject, for many special points in the history
and terminology of the various sciences have for the first time been
elucidated in its pages.
The reputation, however, of the Dictionary is now so widely spread that
it would be superfluous to call witnesses to its unique qualities and its
profound usefulness. In the legislature and in the law courts, as well as
in the library and the market place, its ruling on the meanings and use
of words is accepted as final. Nor is the range of the work limited in
this respect to the usage of the United Kingdom; it embraces all forms of
the language sanctioned as standard by literary use, wherever English is
spoken and written.
For these and other reasons no proper comparison can be made with any
other English dictionary; but the magnitude of the result may none the
less be gauged by means of these. Taking one of the ten volumes as a
basis of comparison, the seventh, comprising words beginning with O and
P, has nearly 49,000 words (of which over 5,000 are obsolete and nearly
2,000 are naturalized aliens). No other English dictionary has more than
27,000 words beginning with O and P. When comparison is made of the
number of illustrative quotations, the difference is overwhelming; Vol.
VII has 175,000 quotations, and no other dictionary has much more than
20,000 for the same sections of the alphabet.
If it is thought that, great as the work is, it has taken an inordinate
time to produce, comfort may be taken from the fate of comparable
enterprises abroad. The great _Deutsches Wörterbuch_ started by the
brothers Grimm in 1838 began to be printed as long ago as 1851, and thus
had a start of over thirty years; but though it is only some two-thirds
of the scale of the Oxford book, there still after sixty-seven years
remains about a sixth to do. The Dutch _Woordenboek_ is less advanced,
and the dictionary of the Swedish Academy has not passed the letter D.
The state of the work to-day is that of the ten volumes nine are
published, and of the tenth (Ti-Z) substantial parts are complete, namely
Ti-Ty, and V, X Y Z, and the first sections of U and W. The end, however,
is not so near as might be thought; U is a large section, and W is in
many respects the most difficult letter in the alphabet, consisting as
it does almost entirely of words of Teutonic origin, and therefore of
obscure etymology and complicated history. A lexicographer makes light
work of _parallelepiped_ and _supralapsarian_; it is when he comes to
words like _wealth_ and _work_, _war_ and _waste_, _wild_ and _wilful_,
that his powers of discovery and of discrimination are seriously taxed.
Sir James Murray (he was knighted in 1908) died 26 July 1915. His
ambition to see the completion of the work on his eightieth birthday in
1917 was not fulfilled, and even if he had lived to devote to it his
amazing powers of application, could not have been fulfilled. He lived,
however, to see the end of his life-work in sight, and more than that of
any other man his name will be associated with the long and efficient
working of the great engine of research. The volumes produced by him have
characteristic excellences which cannot be exactly matched, though they
may be rivalled by merits of another kind.
The work is now carried on by three editors, working independently on
different sections of the alphabet. Dr. Henry Bradley, whose period
of work on the Dictionary now rivals Murray’s in point of time, is by
common consent the greatest of living English philologists. He has
been an editor since 1888. Professor W. A. Craigie, who has been an
editor since 1901, and Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon
since 1916, brings to the work of the Dictionary a rare combination of
qualifications. He is especially eminent as a Scandinavian scholar.
Mr. C. T. Onions, appointed an editor in 1913, has been on the staff
since 1895. He is also known to scholars as the author of the _Oxford
Shakespeare Glossary_ and for his editorial part in _Shakespeare’s
England_.
The London Goldsmiths’ Company contributed £5,000 towards the cost of
the sixth volume of the Dictionary, the title-page of which records
their generous support. Apart from this the whole of the editorial and
manufacturing cost of the work has been borne by the Delegates of the
Press, who have defrayed from their general revenues a heavy annual
outlay for many years. This has necessarily risen since the war, and it
is fortunate that so large a part of the work had been completed under
conditions less onerous than now obtain.
The price of the Dictionary has been kept very low, the sections being
published at the rate of 2_s._ 6_d._ for sixty-four pages or less than
a halfpenny per page containing on an average over 300 lines of type
and nearly 3,000 words. Few books have ever been sold at so low a rate.
The prices of volumes and half volumes stoutly bound in leather have
necessarily been advanced in recent years to meet the enhanced cost
of manufacturing; but the price of the Dictionary is still no more
than nominal, if regard is paid to the outlay precedent to the actual
manufacture of the books. Sections in paper wrappers, issued after 1920,
will be priced at the rate of 5_s._ for sixty-four pages; but it is not
proposed to raise the price of the bulk of the work in this form.
The London _Times_ in 1897 described the Dictionary as ‘the greatest
effort which any University, it may be any printing press, has taken in
hand since the invention of printing.... It will be not the least of the
glories of the University of Oxford to have completed this gigantic task’.
Lord Curzon in his _Letter to the University_ of 1909 wrote: ‘In the
staff of the English Dictionary alone the Press contributes to the
University what is probably the largest single engine of Research working
anywhere at the present time.’
§ 7. _Dictionary of National Biography_
This, the largest of all national collections of biography, owes its
existence to the enterprise and munificence of the late GEORGE SMITH,
who founded it in 1882. The work was produced by the co-operation of
a large number of scholars acting under the direction of the late Sir
LESLIE STEPHEN, with whom was afterwards associated Mr. SIDNEY LEE; and
the latter half of the work was produced under Sir SIDNEY LEE’s sole
editorship.
It was produced in sixty-three quarterly volumes, 1885-1900, the
arrangement being alphabetical; and the lives of those who died too
late to be admitted in their alphabetical place were included by the
issue of three supplementary volumes, which brought the work down to
the death of Queen Victoria and just past the close of the nineteenth
century. The sixty-six volumes were later reissued, with corrections, on
thinner paper, three volumes being converted into one; and this edition
in twenty-two volumes constitutes the main dictionary from the earliest
times to the close of the Victorian era, in the form now on sale. It
contains, in rather more than 30,000 pages, some 30,000 lives, each
equipped with a select bibliography. The roll of contributors includes
many famous names; conspicuous among the articles are those of Sir Leslie
Stephen himself, which are models of form and substance, and those of the
present Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, Dr. C. H. Firth,
whose Life of Cromwell is an acknowledged classic.
Continuing the work of the founder, Mrs. George Smith undertook a
Supplement covering the years 1901-1911, which was produced by Sir Sidney
Lee in 1912-13. This, as the first of a series of twentieth-century
volumes, inaugurated what may be regarded as a second and distinct work.
Further, in 1903 was published in one volume an _Index and Epitome_ to
the Dictionary, giving within 1,500 pages 30,000 succinct biographies.
The value of this compendium, to the very large non-professional public
to whom the main work in twenty-two bulky volumes is not readily
accessible, need not be emphasized. It has been thought proper, however,
to lay stress upon its usefulness as an independent work of reference,
which may fairly be expected to take its place, upon thousands of
shelves, along with other compendious dictionaries and encyclopaedias;
the Index and Epitome, therefore, along with the Index and Epitome to the
Supplement of 1901-11, bound with it, is now issued under the short title
of _Concise Dictionary of National Biography_.
The Dictionary of National Biography, with the responsibility for
its maintenance, was offered to the University of Oxford in 1917 and
gratefully accepted. Work is now in progress on a further decennial
supplement covering the years 1912-21. This supplement will be edited by
Mr. H. W. Carless Davis of Balliol and Mr. J. R. H. Weaver of Trinity.
The Supplement of 1901-11, the _Concise Dictionary_, and many volumes of
the main work, have recently been reprinted from plates; and the sale of
the work shows an improvement when compared with the years preceding the
war. Whether it will in the future be found practicable to attempt the
systematic revision of the main work must still remain in doubt. The
manufacturing expense of a new edition would be very heavy, and could be
justified only by searching investigations, leading to a very substantial
gain in accuracy, which must occupy years and involve a further heavy
expenditure. The total outlay required has been estimated at £100,000,
and this perhaps could not be defrayed without the munificence of a
second founder. It may, however, be hoped that such a work will not
at last languish for lack of funds. Meanwhile, under the direction of
Mr. H. W. CARLESS DAVIS, the Delegates’ adviser upon the Dictionary,
preliminary work is being steadily carried on. Subject-indexes have been
prepared; a bibliography is in hand of the biographical literature which
has accumulated since the publication of the Dictionary; and various
special investigations are being made into periods for which the work is
especially in need of revision. When it is remembered that a whole army
of scholars was continually at work upon the material of the _New English
Dictionary_ for more than a quarter of a century before the first page
was sent to press, it will be seen that the material of the _Dictionary
of National Biography_ may have to be newly surveyed with something of
the same elaboration, if that Dictionary is ever to be rebuilt from its
foundations.
§ 8. _The Oxford Medical Publications_
In the year 1907 a Joint Committee was formed between the Oxford
University Press and Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, under the Directorship
of Mr. Humphrey Sumner Milford and Sir Ernest Hodder Williams, which had
for its object the production of Medical, Surgical, and Scientific books,
under the general title of the ‘Oxford Medical Publications’.
The Committee were peculiarly fortunate in having the invaluable advice
and assistance, in the choice of Authors and Subjects, of the late Sir
William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford,
and a Delegate of the Press.
The key-note of the Oxford Medical Publications has always been the
practical character of the treatment. The popular Medical Manuals,
Monographs, and the ‘General Practitioner Series’ have now a world-wide
reputation, and include a large number of standard works, such as
_Diseases of the Heart_, and _Principles of Diagnosis and Treatment in
Heart Affections_ by Sir James Mackenzie, _A System of Operative Surgery_
by F. F. Burghard, C.B., _Common Disorders and Diseases of Childhood_
by G. F. Still, _Practical Obstetrics_ by Professor E. Hastings Tweedy,
_Guide to Gynaecology in General Practice_ by Comyns Berkeley and Victor
Bonney, _The Practitioner’s Encyclopaedia of Medical Treatment_, _The
Practitioner’s Encyclopaedia of Medicine and Surgery_.
By the acquisition in 1908 of Mr. Young J. Pentland’s business, leading
Text-books by the most eminent Scottish authors were incorporated,
including such well-known books as Cunningham’s _Text-book of Anatomy_
and _Manual of Practical Anatomy_, Muir and Ritchie’s _Manual of
Bacteriology_, Thomson and Miles’s _Manual of Surgery_, Waring’s _Manual
of Operative Surgery_, Thomson’s _Outlines of Zoology_.
The Oxford Medical Publications were awarded the Grand Prix at the
seventeenth International Congress of Medicine held in London in 1913.
This award was bestowed for the general excellence of the Students’ books
produced in the Series, and for the production of new and original work
therein.
In 1916 the Committee sustained a great loss in the death of their
Editor, James Keogh Murphy. A further heavy loss was sustained at the end
of 1919 by the death of Sir William Osler, whose advice and assistance
had always been of inestimable value. After the death of Mr. Murphy,
the Editorship was temporarily undertaken by Lieut.-Colonel Sir D’Arcy
Power, who was responsible for several important additions to the Series,
including the well-known _Oxford War Primers of Medicine and Surgery_.
Towards the close of hostilities Captain Robert McNair Wilson, M.B.,
Ch.B., late Assistant to Sir James Mackenzie under the Medical Research
Committee, became Editor, and under his direction further important
additions have been made, including _Menders of the Maimed_ by Professor
Arthur Keith, _Studies in Neurology_ by Henry Head, _Operative Treatment
of Chronic Intestinal Stasis_ by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, _Diagnosis and
Treatment of Venereal Diseases in General Practice_ by Brevet-Colonel
L. W. Harrison, D.S.O., _Plastic Surgery of the Face_ by Major H.
D. Gillies, C.B.E., R.A.M.C., _War Neuroses and Shell Shock_ by Sir
Frederick Mott, K.B.E., _Trench Fever_ by Lieut.-Colonel W. Byam, O.B.E.,
_Clinical Ophthalmology for the General Practitioner_ by A. Maitland
Ramsay, and _Tropical Ophthalmology_ by Lieut.-Colonel R. H. Elliot,
I.M.S. The present Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, Sir Archibald
Garrod, is a Delegate of the Press and an Oxford author.
The Oxford Catalogue now devotes many pages to the medical list, and the
American Branch, by the publication of the encyclopaedic ‘loose-leaf’
_Oxford Surgery_, has produced an important and valuable adaptation of a
British original. In the _Quarterly Journal of Medicine_ the University
possesses one of the most valuable scientific journals in the world;
and in the other medical publications it administers what is at once a
valuable property and a powerful instrument of education. Oxford medical
books are known wherever English is spoken.
§ 9. _Oxford Books for Boys and Girls_
The more recent activities of the Press include a notable enterprise,
started by Mr. Henry Frowde jointly with Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton,
but now carried on by Mr. Milford alone. This was the foundation in 1907
of a new department for the issue of educational works for elementary
schools, and of ‘gift-books’, useful and recreative literature, for
young people of all ages. The Oxford Reading Books, which headed the
list, set a new literary standard for books of the class; and the series
established itself not only in this country but in parts of the Empire so
remote and so diverse as Australia and Burma. It was followed by further
series of reading books, and of books on history, geography, arithmetic,
nature study, and other subjects of the elementary curriculum. The part
taken by the Press in the educational system of the English-speaking
world may now be said to comprehend the whole scholastic field from the
infant school upwards.
Concurrently with the school publications, the J. Department, as it is
known for convenience, has issued from Falcon Square a great variety
of books for the leisure hours of boys and girls. These include
finely illustrated editions of classics, such as _Robinson Crusoe_,
Grimm’s _Tales_, Kingsley’s _Water Babies_, _Alice in Wonderland_;
books on nature, science, industry, imperial history; miscellanies
both instructive and entertaining; stories for boys, girls, and young
children; and for the very youngest, picture books of all kinds.
All these publications are edited with care, and both on the literary and
on the artistic side a high level of excellence is aimed at. Some two
million copies of the books are distributed during the year.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Part of the first lines of the Great Charter of the
University granted by Charles I on March 3, 1635/6,
in which the printing privileges, first granted on
Nov. 12, 1632, were finally confirmed and settled. The
large initial C contains a portrait of the King in his
robes. The original is preserved among the University
Archives. The portion relating to Printing is reproduced
in full in Madan’s _Oxford Books_, vol. ii, pp. 526-30. _Frontispiece_
Device used on the back of the Title of _Sphæra
Civitatis_, Oxford 1588 _Page 10_
Four Founders of the Oxford University Press: Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester; Archbishop Laud; Dr. John
Fell; Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon _Facing 10_
The Old Congregation House (interior), Domus
Typographica. The first printing-house owned by the
University, used not for the process of printing, but
for storing Oriental type and printing furniture, and
assigned to this object by Convocation on June 3, 1652.
Until the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre in 1669 the
actual printing was done in the private houses of the
University Printers _Facing 11_
Upper Part of the first page of the _Oxford_ (now
_London_) _Gazette_, 1665. The oldest newspaper or
periodical still existing in England _Page 11_
Oxford University Arms. Some ancient examples used by
the Oxford University Press between 1517 and 1786 _Pages 12, 13_
Illustration from _The History of Lapland_ by John
Shefferus, 1674, the first anthropological book published
by the Press _Page 14_
‘The Prospect of Aleppo.’ From W. Maundrell’s _Journey
from Aleppo to Jerusalem_, Oxford 1703, engraved by M.
Burghers _Page 15_
Title-page of Anthony Wood’s _Historia et Antiquitates
Universitatis Oxoniensis_, published in 1674 _Page 17_
The Three University Presses: The Sheldonian Theatre; The
Clarendon Building; The Press of to-day _Page 19_
The Quadrangle of the University Press at Oxford _Facing 20_
Fire-place in the Delegates’ Room, Clarendon Building;
Grinling Gibbons Fire-place in one of the London Offices _Facing 21_
Specimens of Fell Types (see p. 15) _Page 24_
Specimens of old Music Types and of present-day Roman and
Italic Founts _Page 25_
Specimens of Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Slavonic, Oriental,
and Hieroglyphic Types _Pages 26-7_
Ancient Oak Frames in one of the Composing Rooms; The Upper
Composing Room; The Monotype Casters; Ink-making; The Old
Machine Room; A Perfecting Machine with Self-feeder;
The Old Bindery; One of the Warehouses _Between 28 and 29_
The Nagel Building: the New Bindery and the Crypt _Facing 30_
The War Memorial _” 31_
Wolvercote Paper Mill; Rag-sorting; Rag-cutting;
Rag-boiling; Rag-breaking; Beater Room; Machine
Room; Paper-sorting; Stock Warehouse _Between 36 and 37_
Amen Corner, London _Facing 38_
Examples of Oxford Imprints, fifteenth to eighteenth
centuries _Pages 46-7_
Title-page of the First Oxford Bible, 1675 _Page 56_
Title-page of the Altar Service used at the Coronation of
King George V, 1911 _Page 57_
Title-page of David Wilkins’s Coptic New Testament,
published in 1716 _Page 60_
The Bombay Branch _Facing 66_
The Toronto Branch _” 67_
The Melbourne Branch _” 68_
The South African Branch _” 69_
The New York Branch _” 70_
Show Rooms at the New York Branch _” 71_
Title-page of _Shakespeare’s England_, published in 1916 _Page 79_
Specimen of Work done by M. Burghers, Engraver to the
University about 1700 _Page 86_
Specimen of Work done in the Studio of the Clarendon
Press to-day _” 87_
Illustration from Lily’s _Latin Grammar_, Oxford 1692 _” 88_
One of the drawings by Henry Ford for _A School History
of England_ by C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling, 1911 _Page 89_
Gateway of the Old Ashmolean. The Editorial Staff of the
Oxford English Dictionary now carries on its work on the
lower floor of this building _Facing 98_
The Headpieces and Initials on pp. 9, 23, 58, 63, and 73 are taken from
Clarendon’s _History of the Rebellion_ (1702), the Bodleian Catalogue of
1738, and other early books printed at the Oxford Press.
The Fell Ornaments on pp. 33, 36, 38, 40, &c., are those used in Sir
Thomas Hanmer’s edition of Shakespeare, published in 1744.
The illustration on p. 112 is from Thomas Hearne’s edition of Roper’s
Life of Sir Thomas More published at Oxford in 1716.
[Illustration]
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