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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME
ACCOUNT OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1468-1921 ***

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THE
OXFORD
University Press

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

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

T
HE 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

HE 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.

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

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

Archbishop Laud

Dr. John Fell

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon

THE INTERIOR OF THE OLD CONGREGATION HOUSE

The first printing-house owned by the University; used for storing Oriental type
and printing-furniture, 1652.

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.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY ARMS

Some ancient examples used by the Oxford University Press

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.

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.

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 10s. Still
cheaper is the one-volume edition of 1843, in 1,366 pages royal octavo, the
price of which is 21s. 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’.

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.

THE QUADRANGLE OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS AT OXFORD

Fire-place in the Delegates’ Room Clarendon Building

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
T H E P R E S S T O - D AY

§ 1. The Press at Oxford

HE 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.

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.

Ancient Oak Frames in one of the Composing Rooms

The Upper Composing Room

Monotype Casters

Ink-making

The Old Machine Room

A Perfecting Machine with Self-feeder

The Old Bindery (now a Warehouse)

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

The New Bindery

The Crypt

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

T
HE 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.

WOLVERCOTE PAPER MILL

Rag Sorting

Rag Cutting

Rag Boiling

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

T
HE 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.

Beater Room

Machine Room

Paper Sorting

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

T
HE 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.

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

A
LL 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

F
OR 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

T
HE 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.

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

U
NTIL 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

T
HE 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.

§ 10. Bibles and Prayer Books

S
OME 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.

§ 11. Clarendon Press Books

B
Y 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 12s. 6d. 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 30s.) 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

HE 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.

THE BOMBAY BRANCH

THE TORONTO BRANCH

§ 2. The Press in Canada

T
HE 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

T
HIS 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.

THE MELBOURNE BRANCH

MARKHAM’S BUILDINGS, CAPE TOWN
in which the South African Branch is situated

§ 4. The Press in South Africa

T
HE 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

HE 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

T
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

F
OR 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

T
HE 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.

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

Bible Show Room

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

T 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.

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

O
XFORD 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

T
HE 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 15s. or 5,000 at 5s. 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.

Specimen of work done by M. Burghers, Engraver to the University about 1700

Specimen of work done in the studio of the Clarendon Press to-day

From Lily’s Latin Grammar, Oxford 1692

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

T
HE 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

T
HE 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

T
HE 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.’

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 2s. 6d. 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 5s. 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

T
HIS, 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

I
N 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

T
HE 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.

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