Transcriber’s Note: Purely decorative illustrations have been removed
from the plain text version; the remaining illustrations have been moved,
where necessary, to the nearest paragraph break in the text.
THE
OXFORD
University Press
[Illustration: INITIAL FROM THE GREAT CHARTER OF THE UNIVERSITY, 1635/6
Granted by Charles I to confirm and settle printing privileges which had
been first granted in 1632. See p. 112]
SOME ACCOUNT
OF THE
OXFORD
University Press
1468-1921
[Illustration]
_OXFORD_
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M CM XXII
Oxford University Press
_London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _Copenhagen_
_New York_ _Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_
_Bombay_ _Calcutta_ _Madras_ _Shanghai_
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY
_~The author~ desires to express his grateful thanks to all those members
of the Staffs of the Press and its Branches who have helped him in the
compilation of this sketch, or have contributed to its typographical
or pictorial embellishment; and especially to ~Mr. FALCONER MADAN~,
from whose ~Brief Account of the University Press at Oxford (1908)~ the
historical details here mentioned are derived._
OXFORD, _December 1921_.
CONTENTS
I. HISTORICAL SKETCH 9
II. THE PRESS TO-DAY
The Press at Oxford 23
The Press in the War 33
Wolvercote Paper Mill 36
The Press in London 38
Administration 40
Finance 42
Oxford Imprints 45
Catalogues and Advertisement 49
The Press and its Authors 54
Bibles and Prayer Books 58
Clarendon Press Books 61
III. THE PRESS ABROAD
India 63
Canada 67
Australasia 68
South Africa 69
China 69
Scandinavia 69
The United States 70
IV. OXFORD BOOKS
Oxford Series 73
Oxford Books on the Empire 81
The Oxford Standard 83
Illustrated Books 90
Official Publications 92
The Oxford English Dictionary 95
The Dictionary of National Biography 103
The Oxford Medical Publications 106
Oxford Books for Boys and Girls 109
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 110
I
HISTORICAL SKETCH
The first book printed at Oxford is the very rare Commentary on the
Apostles’ Creed attributed to St. Jerome, the colophon of which is dated
17 December, Anno domini Mcccclxviij. It is improbable that a book was
printed at Oxford so early as 1468; and the bibliographers are on various
grounds agreed that an x has been omitted. If so, Oxford must be content
to date the beginning of its Press from the year 1478; while Westminster,
its only English precursor, produced its first book from Caxton’s press
in 1477.
The first printer was Theodoric Rood, who came to England from Cologne,
and looked after the Press until about 1485; soon after which date the
first Press came to an end. The second Press lasted from 1517 until
1520, and was near Merton College. Some twenty-three books are known to
have issued from these Presses; they are for the most part classical or
theological works in Latin. There is no doubt that this early Press was
really the University Press; for many of the books have the imprint _in
Alma Universitate Oxoniae_ or the like, some bear the University Arms,
and some are issued with the express privilege of the Chancellor of the
University.
[Illustration: Device used on the back of the title of _Sphæra Civitatis_
Oxford 1588]
After 1520 there is a gap in the history, which begins again in 1585.
The Chancellor of that time was Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the Earl
of Leicester, who in the first issue of the new Press is celebrated
as its founder. Convocation in 1584 had appointed a committee _De
Libris imprimendis_, and in 1586 the University lent £100 to an Oxford
bookseller, Joseph Barnes, to carry on a press. In the next year an
ordinance of the Star Chamber allowed one press at Oxford, and one
apprentice in addition to the master printer. Barnes managed the Press
until 1617, and printed many books now prized by collectors, among them
the first book printed at Oxford in Greek (the Chrysostom of 1586), the
first book with Hebrew type (1596), Richard de Bury’s _Philobiblon_, and
Captain John Smith’s _Map of Virginia_.
FOUR FOUNDERS OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
[Illustration: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester]
[Illustration: Archbishop Laud]
[Illustration: Dr. John Fell]
[Illustration: Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon]
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF THE OLD CONGREGATION HOUSE
The first printing-house owned by the University; used for storing
Oriental type and printing-furniture, 1652.]
[Illustration: Upper part of the first page of the Oxford (now London)
Gazette, 1665. The oldest newspaper still existing in England]
The first notable promoter of the Oxford Press was Archbishop Laud,
whose statutes contemplate the appointment of an _Architypographus_,
and who secured for the University in 1632 Letters Patent authorizing
three printers (each with two presses and two apprentices), and in
1636 a Royal Charter entitling the University to print ‘all manner
of books’. The privilege of printing the Bible was not exercised at
this date; but in 1636 Almanacks were produced, and this seems to have
alarmed the Stationers’ Company, who then enjoyed a virtual monopoly of
Bibles, Grammars, and Almanacks; for we find that in 1637 the University
surrendered the privilege to the Stationers for an annual payment of
£200, twice the amount of Joseph Barnes’s working capital. The most
famous books belonging to what may be called the Laudian period were
five editions of Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and one of Bacon’s
_Advancement of Learning_ in English.
[Illustration: OXFORD UNIVERSITY ARMS
Some ancient examples used by the Oxford University Press]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: From _The History of Lapland_ by John Shefferus, 1674, the
first anthropological book published by the Press]
The work of the Press during the Civil War is of interest to historians
and bibliographers on account of the great number of Royalist Pamphlets
and Proclamations issued while the Court of Charles I was at Oxford; a
number swollen in appearance by those printed in London with counterfeit
Oxford imprints. But this period is not important in the history of the
Learned Press; and after 1649 it suffered a partial eclipse which did
not pass until the Restoration.
[Illustration: From W. Maundrell’s _Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem_,
Oxford, 1703, engraved by M. Burghers]
The history of the Press in the latter part of the seventeenth century
will always be connected with the name of the second of its great
patrons, Dr. John Fell, Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford. Fell
made the great collection of type-punches and matrices from which the
beautiful types known by his name are still cast at Oxford; he promoted
the setting up of a paper mill at Wolvercote, where Oxford paper is
still made; he conducted the long, and ultimately successful, struggle
with the Stationers and the King’s Printers, from which the history of
Oxford Bibles and Prayer Books begins (1675). In 1671 he and three others
took over the management of the Press, paying the University £200 a
year and spending themselves a large sum upon its development. Lastly,
it seems that he suggested to Archbishop Sheldon the provision, due to
his munificence, of the new and spacious printing house and _Theatre_
which still bears his name. The Press was installed there in 1669, and
began to issue the long series of books which bear the imprint _Oxoniae
e Theatro Sheldoniano_, or in the vulgar tongue _Oxford at the Theater_.
These imprints, indeed, were still used, at times, long after the Press
had been moved from the Sheldonian to its next home in the Clarendon
Building. Many learned folios were printed at this time, including
pioneer work by Oxford students of Oriental languages; the book best
remembered to-day is no doubt Anthony Wood’s _Historia et Antiquitates
Universitatis Oxoniensis_ published in 1674.
To this period belongs also the first exercise of the privilege to print
Bibles and Prayer Books, which was recognized, as we have seen, at least
as early as 1637, when the Stationers’ Company paid the University to
refrain from printing Bibles. This agreement lasted until 1642, and, by
renewal at intervals, until 1672, when it was at length denounced; and in
1675 a quarto English Bible was printed _at the Theater_, and a beginning
made of what has become an extensive and highly technical process of
manufacture and distribution.
[Illustration]
Early in the eighteenth century the Press acquired, with a new
habitation, a name still in very general use. The University was granted
the perpetual copyright of Clarendon’s _History of the Rebellion_ (a
possession in which it was confirmed by the Copyright Act of 1911); and
the _Clarendon Building_ was built chiefly from the profits accruing from
the sales of that book. Many editions were printed in folio at various
dates; and the Press Catalogue still offers the fine edition of 1849,
with the notes of Bishop Warburton, in seven volumes octavo, and that of
the _Life_ in two volumes, 1857; the whole comprising over 5,000 pages
and sold for £4 10_s._ Still cheaper is the one-volume edition of 1843,
in 1,366 pages royal octavo, the price of which is 21_s._ More recently
the demands of piety have been still further satisfied by the issue of
a new edition based on fresh collations made from the manuscript by the
late Dr. Macray. Though the Clarendon Building long since ceased to be
a printing house, one of its rooms is still _The Delegates’ Room_; and
there the Delegates of the Press hold their stated meetings.
In the eighteenth century the Bible Press grew in strength with the
co-operation of London booksellers and finally with the establishment
(in 1770, if not earlier) of its own Bible Warehouse in Paternoster
Row. The Learned Press, on the other hand, though some important books
were produced, suffered from the general apathy which then pervaded the
University. Sir William Blackstone, having been appointed a Delegate,
found that his colleagues did not meet, or met only to do nothing;
and addressed to the Vice-Chancellor a vigorous pamphlet, in which he
described the Press as ‘languishing in a lazy obscurity, and barely
reminding us of its existence, by now and then slowly bringing forth a
Program, a Sermon printed by request, or at best a Bodleian Catalogue’.
The great lawyer’s polemic gradually battered down the ramparts of
ignorant negligence, and the Press began to revive under the new statute
which he promoted. Dr. Johnson in 1767 was able to assure his sovereign
that the authorities at Oxford ‘had put their press under better
regulation, and were at that time printing _Polybius_’.
[Illustration: The Three University Presses]
The Clarendon Building is not large, and the Press very soon outgrowing
it was partly housed in various adjacent buildings, until in 1826-30
the present Press in Walton Street was erected. It is remarkable that
though the building is more like a college than a factory—it is of the
quadrangular plan regular in Oxford—and was built when printing was
still mainly a handicraft, it has been found possible to adapt its solid
fabric and spacious rooms to modern processes with very little structural
alteration. Extensive additions, however, have been and are even now
being made.
The activities of the nineteenth century are too various to detail; but
a few outstanding facts claim mention. The Bible business continued to
prosper, and gained immensely in variety by the introduction of Oxford
India paper and by the publication, in conjunction with Cambridge, of the
Revised Version of the Old and New Testaments. Earlier in the century
there was a period of great activity in the production of editions of the
Classics, in which Gaisford played a great part and to which many foreign
scholars like Wyttenbach and Dindorf gave their support. Later, in the
Secretaryships of Kitchin (for many years afterwards Dean of Durham) and
of Bartholomew Price, new ground was broken with the famous _Clarendon
Press Series_ of school books by such scholars as Aldis Wright, whose
editions of Shakespeare have long served as a quarry for successive
editors. The _New English Dictionary_ began to be published in 1884.
Meanwhile the manufacturing powers of the Press at Oxford and the selling
powers of the publishing house in London were very widely extended by the
energies of Mr. Horace Hart and Mr. Henry Frowde, and the foundations
were laid of the great and multifarious enterprises which belong to the
history of the last twenty years.
[Illustration: THE QUADRANGLE OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS AT OXFORD]
[Illustration: Fire-place in the Delegates’ Room Clarendon Building]
[Illustration: Grinling Gibbons Fire-place in one of the London Offices]
The growth of the Press in the first two decades of the present century
is due to the co-operation of a large number of individuals: of the
members of the University who have acted as Delegates; of their officers,
managers, and employees; and of the authors of Oxford books. In so far,
however, as this period of its history can be identified with the name of
one man, it will be remembered as that in which the late CHARLES CANNAN
served the Delegates as Secretary. The Delegates at his death placed
on record their judgement that he had made an inestimable contribution
to the prosperity and usefulness of the Press. The _Times Literary
Supplement_, in reviewing the last edition of the _Oxford University
Roll of Service_, gave some account of the services performed by the
University in the war. One paragraph dealt with the work of the Press:—
‘Probably no European Press did more to propagate historical and ethical
truth about the war. The death of its Secretary, Charles Cannan, a year
ago, has left an inconsolable regret among all those more fortunate
Oxford men, old and young, who had the honour to be acquainted with
one of the finest characters and most piercing intelligences of our
time. He was a very great man, and is alive to-day in the spirit of the
institution which he enriched with his personality and his life.’
II
THE PRESS TO-DAY
§ 1. _The Press at Oxford_
The main building of the Oxford Press, erected 1826-30, consists of
three sides of a quadrangle. The two main wings, each of three floors,
are still known as the _Learned Side_ and the _Bible Side_, though their
appropriation to Bibles and secular books has long since ceased in
fact. On the Learned Side are the hand composing rooms, both the book
department and the jobbing department, where some readers and compositors
are employed in setting up the official papers of the University,
examination papers, and other miscellaneous work, and the more difficult
and complicated books produced for the Delegates or other publishers.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The total quantity of type in the Press is estimated at over one million
pounds of metal, and includes some 550 different founts of type in
some 150 different characters, ranging from the hieroglyphic and the
prehistoric ‘Minoan’ (cast to record Sir Arthur Evans’s discoveries), to
the phonetic scripts of Sweet and Passy; and including Sanskrit, Greek,
Roman, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Amharic, Coptic, Armenian,
Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, Sinhalese, Tamil, Gothic, Cyrillic. Here,
too, are the famous Fell types acquired by the University about 1667.
These are virtually the same as the founts from which were printed the
first edition of _The Faerie Queene_ and the First Folio Shakespeare;
and their beauty makes them still the envy of printers all the world
over. Here compositors are still daily engaged in setting the Oxford
Dictionary (with its twenty-one different sizes or characters of type),
which has been slowly growing since 1882. One compositor has a record of
thirty-eight years’ continuous work on the Dictionary.
In part of the same wing is the _Delegates’ Warehouse_. Here, and in a
number of annexes, including the old _Delegates’ School_ built about
1840, repose the oldest and most durable of the Delegates’ publications.
They are stored for the most part in lofty stacks of unfolded sheets,
like the piers of a Norman crypt. From these vaults was drawn into the
upper air, in 1907, the last copy of Wilkins’s _Coptic New Testament_,
published in 1716, the paper hardly discoloured and the impression still
black and brilliant. It is estimated that these warehouses contain some
three and a half million copies of about four thousand five hundred
distinct books.
[Illustration: Ancient Oak Frames in one of the Composing Rooms]
[Illustration: The Upper Composing Room]
[Illustration: Monotype Casters]
[Illustration: Ink-making]
[Illustration: The Old Machine Room]
[Illustration: A Perfecting Machine with Self-feeder]
[Illustration: The Old Bindery (now a Warehouse)]
[Illustration: One of the Warehouses]
Of the _Bible Side_ the ground floor is now the press room or _Machine
Room_, which, with its more recent extensions, holds about fifty
machines, from the last survivor of the old flat-impression double
Platens to the most modern American double-cylinder ‘perfecting’ presses
with their automatic ‘feeders’. All kinds of printing are done here,
from the small numbers of an oriental book or a Prayer Book in black and
red to the largest impression of a Bible printed in sheets containing
320 pages each. The long experience of printing Bibles on thin paper and
especially on Oxford India paper has given the Oxford machine-minder an
unrivalled dexterity in the nice adjustment required to produce a fine
clean effect on paper which will not stand a heavy impression.
As the sheets come from machine they are sent to the _Bindery_. This
was until recently on the floor above the machine room, but has lately
been transferred to a larger and more convenient building erected in the
old garden behind the Press. The Oxford Bindery deals with most of the
Clarendon Press books in cloth bindings, and prides itself upon the fine
finish of the cases and gilding of such beautiful books as the _Oxford
Book of English Verse_, as well as on being able to turn out artistic and
attractive cloth and paper bindings for books sold at the lowest prices.
It still deals with a part only of the books printed under the same roof;
but a large expansion is looked for in the near future.
Between the two wings, and across the quadrangle, are two houses once
occupied by the late Horace Hart and by Dr. Henry Bradley, now the senior
of the three editors of the Oxford Dictionary. The houses became some
years ago unfit for habitation from the encroachment of machinery; but
one of them was a welcome refuge during the years of war to the staff of
the Oxford Local Examinations, who on the 5th of August 1914 were turned
out of their office at an hour’s notice to make room for a Base Hospital.
Adjacent to the houses are the fire-proof _Plate Room_, where some 750
tons of metal are stored, the _Stereotype and Electrotype Foundry_,
and the _Monotype Rooms_, a department which has lately added to its
equipment and bids fair to pass the ancient composing rooms in output.
Other departments in and about the old building are the _Photographic
Room_, famous for its collotype printing, the _Type Foundry_, where Fell
type is still cast from the old matrices, and the _Ink Factory_.
The front of the building on Walton Street consists chiefly of packing
rooms, where books are dispatched by rail or road to the City of London
and elsewhere, and of offices—those of the Printer to the University on
the ground floor and those of the Secretary to the Delegates above. Here
are reference libraries of books printed or published by the Press, and
records ranging from the oldest Delegates’ minute-book of the seventeenth
century to modern type-written correspondence arranged on the ‘vertical’
system of filing.
As the visitor enters the main gate the first object which catches his
eye is a plain stone monument on the lawn. There are inscribed the names
of the forty-four men of the Oxford Press who gave their lives in the
War. Beyond the memorial is the quadrangle, made beautiful by grass and
old trees; and from upper windows it is still possible to look over the
flats of the Thames Valley and see the sun set behind Wytham Woods.
Corporate feeling has always been strong among the workers at the
Press, and though the Delegates and their officers have done what they
could to promote it, it is essentially a natural growth. Many of the
work-people come of families which have been connected with the Press for
generations; and they are proud not only of the old traditions of fine
and honest work, but also of the usefulness and scholarly excellence of
the books on which their labour is spent. The Press is, in all its parts,
conscious at once of its unity and of its relation to the University of
which it is an integral part.
THE NAGEL BUILDING
[Illustration: The New Bindery]
[Illustration: The Crypt]
[Illustration: THE WAR MEMORIAL]
This spirit is well shown by the history of the Press Volunteer Fire
Brigade, constituted in 1885. The Brigade now numbers thirty-two officers
and men, who by regular drills and competitions have made themselves
efficient firemen, and able to assist the Oxford City Brigade in case
of need. The Press possesses also a branch of the St. John Ambulance
Brigade, and first aid can be given at once if any accident happens.
Various Provident and Benevolent Societies exist at the Press, and the
principle of co-operation by the employer was recognized for many years
before the passing of the National Health Insurance Act. The Hospitals
Fund makes substantial yearly contributions to the Radcliffe Infirmary
and the Oxford Eye Hospital, and in view of the pressing needs of these
institutions the subscription to the Fund has recently been doubled.
The common life naturally finds expression in the organization of
recreation of all kinds. There is a Dramatic Society, the records of
which go back to 1860; an Instrumental Society, dating from 1852; a Vocal
Society, a Minstrel Society, a Piscatorial Society; Athletic, Cricket,
Football, and Bowls Clubs, now amalgamated; and, not the least useful nor
the least entertaining, the Gardening Association, formed during the war
to meet the demand for more potatoes. Such of the men of the Press as
were obliged to content themselves with the defence of the home front,
responded with enthusiasm in their own gardens and allotments; and the
Food Production Exhibition which crowned their efforts in the summer of
1918 became an annual event. In peace, as in war, there is need for all
the food we can produce; and the Gardening Association has very wisely
not relaxed its efforts.
The Clarendon Press Institute in Walton Street, close to the Press
itself, provides accommodation for lectures, debates, and dramatic and
other entertainments, as well as a library, a reading room, and rooms for
indoor games. The building was given by the Delegates, who contribute to
its maintenance, but its management is completely democratic. The members
appoint their own executive and are responsible for their own finances.
The Council have since 1919 issued a quarterly illustrated Magazine,
printed ‘in the house’. The _Clarendonian_ publishes valuable and
entertaining records of the professional interests and social activities
of the employees of the Press, as well as affording some outlet for
literary aspirations.
§ 2. _The Press in the War_
The Press made to the prosecution of the War both a direct and an
indirect contribution. In August 1914 about 575 adult males were employed
at Oxford; of these sixty-three, being members of the Territorial Force,
were mobilized at the outbreak of war; and of the remainder some 293
enlisted in 1914 or later. Considering the number of those who from age
or other causes were unfit for service, the proportion of voluntary
enlistment was high. The London Office and Wolvercote Mill also gave
their quota to the service of the Crown.
Those who were obliged to remain behind were not idle. The Oxford
historians at once engaged in the controversy upon the responsibility for
the War; and in September 1914 the Press published _Why We are at War:
Great Britain’s Case_, a series of essays closely and dispassionately
reasoned, and illustrated by official documents including the German
White Book, reproduced exactly from the English translation published in
Berlin for neutral consumption and vitiated by clumsy variations from
the German original. _Why We are at War_ rapidly went through twelve
impressions, and at the instance of Government was translated into six
languages. The profits were handed over to the Belgian Relief Fund. At
the same time was initiated, under the editorship of Mr. H. W. C. Davis,
the series of Oxford Pamphlets on war topics, of which in a short time
more than half a million copies were sold all over the world. Later, when
the public appetite for pamphlets slackened, and the world had leisure
for closer study, the series of _Histories of the Belligerents_ was
founded, which is noticed elsewhere.
‘The Clarendon Press,’ writes Sir Walter Raleigh in his Introduction to
the _Oxford University Roll of Service_, ‘though deprived of the services
of virtually all its men of military age, was active in the production of
books and pamphlets, most of them written by Oxford men, setting forth
the causes and issues of the War—a mine of information, and an armoury of
apologetics.’
Not the least of the services rendered by the Press was the printing
done for the Naval Intelligence Department of the Admiralty directed by
Admiral Sir Reginald Hall. Both secrecy and speed were essential to the
usefulness of this work, and to secure them the Printer to the University
made special arrangements involving a severe strain upon himself and
those to whom the work was entrusted. Admiral Hall, when unveiling the
Press War Memorial in October 1920, declared that the work done was
unique in kind, and that without the help of the Press the operations of
his Department could not have been carried out with success.
[Illustration: WOLVERCOTE PAPER MILL]
[Illustration: Rag Sorting]
[Illustration: Rag Cutting]
[Illustration: Rag Boiling]
[Illustration: Rag Breaking]
As the War dragged on, the numbers employed at the Press steadily
declined; the demands of Government as steadily increased; the shortage
of materials of all kinds became more and more acute. None the less
the Bible Press met an unprecedented demand for the New Testament by
supplying within three years four and a half million of copies for use
in the field. The Learned Press, too, continued to produce, though
the volume of production became less and less. The machinery of the
Dictionary, though its movement was retarded, never came to a standstill.
The scientific journals continued to appear, and not a few learned books
were published. A greater number, however, were placed in the Delegates’
safes, in expectation of the increased facilities which the end of the
War has hardly brought. The manufacturing powers of the Press, indeed,
have virtually reached their pre-war level; but the ever-rising cost of
labour and materials has made it as yet impossible to restore to its old
volume the output of books which could at no time have been remunerative.
It may be added that the Delegates, like other publishers, have had to
consider that the purchasing power of the public on which they rely has
not kept pace with the rise in costs. The price of books has of course
risen very greatly; but the ratio of increase has been substantially
lower than that of commodities in general.
§ 3. _Wolvercote Paper Mill_
The first mention of paper-making in or near Oxford is a story of one
Edwards, who about 1670 planned to erect a mill at Wolvercote and was
encouraged by Fell. In 1718 Hearne the antiquary wrote that ‘some of the
best paper in England is made at Wolvercote Mill’. It was bought by the
Press in 1870.
The Mill stands on a branch of the Thames, on the edge of the quiet
village of Wolvercote, and near the ruins of Godstow Nunnery. The
water-wheel has long ceased to play more than a very minor part in the
driving of the mill, which now has two modern paper-making machines, 72
and 80 inches wide respectively. The power used is partly steam, but a
large part of the plant has quite recently been electrified.
[Illustration: Beater Room]
[Illustration: Machine Room]
[Illustration: Paper Sorting]
[Illustration: Paper Stock Warehouse]
Most varieties of high-class printing paper are made at Wolvercote,
which besides feeding the Press does a considerable trade with other
printers. The paper made for the Oxford Dictionary and some other books
is of the finest rag and is probably as durable as the best hand-made
paper of former times. But the Mill is best known for its ‘Bible’ papers,
exceptionally thin, tough, and opaque, with a fine printing surface.
Paper of this kind reaches its acme in the famous Oxford India Paper, the
invention of which made revolutionary changes in the printing of Bibles.
A great many Oxford books are now printed in two editions, an ordinary
and an India paper. If the saving of space is an important consideration,
the convenience of the thinner editions of such books as the _Concise
Oxford Dictionary_, the _Concise Dictionary of National Biography_, or
the _Oxford Survey of the British Empire_ is obvious; and many people
like to read the Poets and the Classics in thin and light volumes. The
_Oxford Homer_ will go into a pocket, though it has 1,374 pages; and
the India paper _Shakespeare_ and _Oxford Book of English Verse_ are
delightfully easy to carry and handle.
The Controller of the Mill is Mr. Douglas Clapperton (a name well known
in the paper trade), who succeeded Mr. Joseph Castle in 1916.
§ 4. _The Press in London_
The association of the Oxford Press with London booksellers—the
publishers of former days—goes back to early times. Apart from the
negative agreement with the Stationers’ Company, _not_ to print Bibles
and Almanacks, we find, at the end of the seventeenth century, Oxford
Bibles bearing the imprint of various London booksellers. In 1776 Dr.
Johnson wrote to the Master of University College a letter, printed
by Boswell, in which he sets forth with knowledge and perspicacity
the philosophy of bookselling; the moral of the discourse is that the
University must offer more attractive discounts to the book trade—a
doctrine which has been adopted in modern times, though in 1776 it
perhaps fell upon deaf ears.
Not later than 1770 a Bible Warehouse was established in Paternoster
Row. But it was not until a century later that the Press undertook
the distribution in London of its secular books. In 1884 these books,
formerly sold by Messrs. Macmillan, were taken over by the Manager of
the Bible Warehouse, Mr. Henry Frowde, who thus became sole publisher to
the University; an office which he continued to hold with great skill,
devotion, and success until on his retirement in 1913 he was succeeded by
Mr. Humphrey Milford.
[Illustration: AMEN CORNER LONDON]
To-day the activities of the Press in or near Amen Corner, London, E.C.
4, are multifarious. From his bound stocks Mr. Milford is ready at short
notice to supply to the booksellers or booksellers’ agents any Clarendon
Press book, any Bible or Prayer Book, any of the books published by
himself as publisher to the University, such as Oxford Poets, World’s
Classics, Oxford Elementary Books, or by himself and Messrs. Hodder and
Stoughton—the Oxford Medical Publications—or for the numerous learned
bodies and American Universities for whom he is agent whether in the
United Kingdom or universally.
In the premises at Amen Corner alone it is estimated that upwards of
three quarters of a million books are at any one time in stock. Packing
and distribution is carried on in the basement and also at Falcon Square,
where the large export department operates. Mr. Milford also maintains at
Old Street a ‘quire’ department from which books in sheets are given out
to his own or other binderies, and in Aldersgate Street a bindery from
which many of the finest Bibles and other leather books are turned out.
The offices at Amen Corner are the centre of the selling activities
of the Press; from them is directed the policy of the branches of the
business at home and abroad. An institution so far-flung naturally causes
some confusion in the public mind. Inquiries from India have sometimes
been addressed to New York, and Mr. Horace Hart treasured an envelope
addressed to _The Controller of the Universe_. In general, however, it
is now widely understood that inquiries for books should be addressed
(by booksellers, or by the public, if the usual trade channels fail)
to _Oxford University Press_ in London or at the nearest Branch (New
York, Toronto, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Shanghai,
Copenhagen); questions about printing to _Controller, Clarendon Press,
Oxford_, and proposals for publication either to the nearest Branch or
direct to the _Secretary, Clarendon Press, Oxford_.
§ 5. _The Administration of the Press_
All the activities of the Press may be described as a function of the
corporation known as the _Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars_ of the
University of Oxford, acting through the Delegates of the Press. The
constitution of this Delegacy is in some respects peculiar. So long ago
as 1757 the statute promoted by Sir William Blackstone for the better
management of the Press established the principles of continuity and of
expert knowledge by the constitution of _Perpetual Delegates_; and these
principles have been maintained.
The Delegacy is now composed of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors for
the time being _ex officio_, and (normally) of ten others, of whom
five are Perpetual. Delegates are appointed for a term of years by the
Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, by whom they may be re-elected; but when a
vacancy occurs among the perpetual Delegates, the Delegates as a whole
are enjoined by statute to ‘subrogate’ one of the junior Delegates
to be perpetual, _ad supplendum perpetuo numerum quinque Perpetuorum
Delegatorum_.
The roll of the Delegates contains the names of many famous scholars.
Among those of recent times may be mentioned William Stubbs, Ingram
Bywater, Frederick York Powell. Within the last few years the Press has
sustained very heavy losses in the death of some of the most experienced
of its Delegates. William Sanday, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity,
took an active part in the many works of profound learning upon New
Testament criticism, by which Oxford has maintained its fame for the
prosecution of Biblical learning. Henry Tresawna Gerrans, Fellow of
Worcester College, was active in financial administration and in the
organization of educational publications. David Henry Nagel, Fellow
of Trinity College, gave invaluable advice on scientific books and on
technical processes of manufacture. He was chiefly responsible for the
plan of the new Bindery, recently completed, which bears his name. The
services of Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine, and of
Charles Cannan, of Trinity College, for over twenty years Secretary to
the Delegates, are noticed elsewhere in these pages.
The composition of the board on 1 December 1921 was as follows:
The Vice-Chancellor (Dr. L. R. Farnell, Rector of Exeter College) and
the Proctors; T. B. Strong, Bishop of Ripon and formerly Dean of Christ
Church (_extra numerum_, by Decree of Convocation); C. R. L. Fletcher,
Magdalen College; P. E. Matheson, Fellow of New College; D. G. Hogarth,
Fellow of Magdalen College and Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum; N.
Whatley, Fellow of Hertford College; Sir Walter Raleigh, Fellow of Merton
College and Professor of English Literature—all perpetual Delegates: H.
J. White, Dean of Christ Church; Sir Archibald Garrod, Student of Christ
Church and Regius Professor of Medicine; Cyril Bailey, Fellow of Balliol
College; H. E. D. Blakiston, President of Trinity; and N. V. Sidgwick,
Fellow of Lincoln.
The principal officers are: _in Oxford_, R. W. Chapman, Oriel College,
_Secretary_; J. de M. Johnson, Exeter College, _Assistant Secretary_; F.
J. Hall, _Printer to the University_; _in London_, Humphrey Milford, New
College, _Publisher to the University_; _in New York_, W. W. McIntosh,
Vice-President of the American Branch; _in Toronto_, S. B. Gundy, Manager
of the Canadian Branch; _in Bombay_, G. F. J. Cumberlege, Worcester
College, Manager of the Indian Branch; _in Melbourne_, E. R. Bartholomew,
Manager of the Australian Branch.
§ 6. _The Finances of the Press_
For some two centuries from the time of Fell the Press was partly
controlled by private partners; since the last of these was bought out
by the efforts of Bartholomew Price, the University has been completely
master of all its printing and publishing business. The Press to-day has
no shareholders or debenture-holders, and subserves no private interest.
On the other hand it possesses virtually no endowment. The whole of its
great business has been gradually built up by the thrifty utilization
of profits made by the sale of its books or in a minor degree from work
done for outside customers. The maintenance of the Learned Press, with
its output of scholarly and educational books, many of which are in
their nature unremunerative, depends and has always depended upon the
profitable management of the publications of the Press as a whole. In the
last century the revenue devoted to learning was supplied mainly from the
sale of Bibles and Prayer Books; but changing conditions led the managers
of the Press to the conclusion that if the promotion of education and
research were to keep pace with the growing volume and range of the
demand, it would be necessary to expand the general activities of the
business in many directions.
In prudent pursuance of a far-sighted policy, the overseas Branches
of the Press were established to increase the sale of Oxford books;
new departments of the publishing business were created, such as the
very extensive series of cheap editions of the English Classics, and,
more recently, the Oxford Elementary Books and the Oxford Medical
Publications; and in the course of years the publications of the Learned
Press itself have gradually become more popular in character and
addressed to a wider audience. In the event, the Press to-day possesses a
business of such magnitude and variety as will, it may be hoped, enable
it to surmount the formidable obstacles which the increased cost of
manufacture opposes to the production of all works of learning.
The demands made upon the Press for the organization and publication
of research are now at least as great as ever. It has again and again
been pointed out by the friends of research, that organization and
encouragement are idle unless the publication of valuable results is
guaranteed; and in the past scholars in this country, and not in this
country only, have looked to the Presses of Oxford and Cambridge to do
the work which in Germany was carried out by Academies subsidized by
Government for this purpose. But the fulfilment of such expectations is
far more onerous than formerly. The tenth and last volume of the great
English Dictionary, now more than half printed, will when it is complete
have cost at least £50,000. The revised edition of Liddell and Scott’s
Greek Lexicon, upon which the Delegates embarked some years before the
war, is now estimated to cost £20,000. These are enterprises in the
successful conclusion of which the honour of the University is concerned;
and they will be concluded; but the date of completion, and therefore the
initiation of other projects of learning, have inevitably been retarded
by the events of the last seven years.
The endowment of research is a difficult subject, and nobody is more
conscious than are the Delegates of the Press, that results of lasting
value are not achieved by the mere expenditure of money. Yet they cannot
but be aware that by the possession of the machinery and traditions of
such works as the English Dictionary, and by their intimate association
with experts in many fields, they are in a position to promote research
and co-operative enterprise in the most effective and economical way.
The support given to the Press in the past, whether by individuals
or by other institutions devoted to learning, has been trifling in
consideration of the work which it has produced. The need of such support
is now far more urgent; and the record of the Press is proof that
financial support would be turned to good account.
§ 7. _Oxford Imprints_
The imprints used by the Press as printers and as publishers are
various, and their import is not always understood. _Oxford at the
Clarendon Press_ is historically and strictly a printer’s imprint, and
it is confined to books printed at Oxford; but it has come to mean
more than this, and to be appropriated to such books as are not only
printed at Oxford, but are also published _auctoritate Universitatis_,
their contents as well as their form being certified by the University,
acting through the Delegates of the Press. A book with this imprint may
in general be assumed to be published at the expense of the Delegates;
but the ‘Clarendon Press imprint’ has come to be so prized as carrying
the Oxford ‘hall-mark’ that its use has occasionally been solicited and
accorded for works of learning produced under the patronage of government
or of learned societies within the Empire and the United States of
America.
[Illustration]
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The Press publishes also, in the ordinary course of business, large
numbers of books for which the Delegates assume a less particular
responsibility; these are issued with the London imprint of the Publisher
to the University (_Oxford University Press: London, Humphrey Milford_)
or those of its branches abroad (_Oxford University Press American
Branch_, _Oxford University Press Indian Branch_ and so on), or on behalf
of the numerous universities, learned societies, or private publishers
for whom the University Press publishes either universally or in certain
parts of the world. Among the bodies for whom the Press acts as publisher
are the British Museum, the British Academy, the Early English Text
Society, the Chaucer Society, and the Philological Society; the Egypt
Exploration Society, Society of Antiquaries, the Pali Text Society,
the Church Music Society, and the Royal Society of Literature; the
Universities of St. Andrews, Bombay, and Madras; the University Presses
of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton; the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, the American
Historical Association, and the American Scandinavian Foundation. _The
Oxford Medical Publications_ and some other books are issued with the
joint imprint of Henry Frowde (Mr. Humphrey Milford’s predecessor as
Publisher to the University) and Hodder and Stoughton. The Press is
publisher in Australia to many English houses.
§ 8. _Catalogues and Advertisement_
Until recent years the Press has relied on its trade catalogues and
special lists, and on the skilled assistance of the bookseller, to
make known to the public the great number and variety of its issues of
the Bible, the New Testament, Prayer Books, Hymn Books, and kindred
works, as well as of its general publications—reprints, medical books,
elementary books and so on; while the Clarendon Press Catalogue of
learned and educational books was a relatively modest affair of under
200 pages. The need of a single general catalogue for the information of
librarians and book-lovers had long been felt, but pressure of business
delayed its preparation until the late Mr. Charles Cannan addressed
himself to the task, and with the devoted co-operation of his daughters
(who had replaced the members of the office staff gone forth to war)
and the advice of many scholars, produced in 1916 the first edition of
the _General Catalogue_, comprising over 500 pages of close print and
including under one comprehensive classification all the secular books
sold by the Press, wheresoever printed, and whether published by the
University on its own account or on behalf of other University Presses
or learned bodies; together with a representative list of Bibles, &c.
(useful to the inquirer though not intended as any substitute for the
elaborate trade catalogues or for the indispensable guidance of the
expert bookseller), and a very full alphabetical index.
The General Catalogue has in the second edition been brought up to
January 1920, and a third edition is in preparation. Supplements are also
from time to time issued comprehending the books published since the
current edition of the Catalogue. The Supplement now current comprises
all books published in 1920.
For the convenience of specialists the Catalogue is also issued in
sections—History, Literature, the Classics, Natural Science, Cheap
Reprints—and special lists have recently been made of books on such
subjects as the British Empire, International Law and Politics, India,
Modern Philosophy. Schoolmasters and University teachers are asked
to apply for the _Select Educational Catalogue_ issued at frequent
intervals, which by omission of the larger and more elaborate books
allows of illustrative information for which there is no room in the
general catalogue.
The General Catalogue has been computed to contain over 8,000 distinct
books or editions of books. These vary from such works as the _New
English Dictionary_ and the _Dictionary of National Biography_, with
their 15,000 and 30,000 pages, to the smallest and cheapest pamphlets and
school-books. The total may be guessed to comprise something like two and
a half millions of printed pages of which no two are identical.
The issue of the Catalogue has secured a wide and increasing recognition
of the comprehensive character of Oxford publications. ‘There are
publishers and publishers, but there is only one Oxford University
Press’, exclaims a writer in the _Athenaeum_; and many reviewers have
noted with sympathetic admiration the value of the Catalogue, not as a
mere price list but as a work of reference and as a book to read. Though
it necessarily requires revision as new publications accrue, it is hoped
that the Catalogue will not be treated as ‘throw-away literature’. It is
a well-printed and solidly bound book, and the cost of supplying free
copies to book-buyers all over the world is not inconsiderable.