The present work was undertaken early in 1889, and is an attempt to
describe in detail the products and working of the Oxford Press in its
early days. Though eclipsed by the glories of the later University
Press, the first period, included in this book, has a natural importance
of its own. The Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Century presses[1] are
necessarily of interest, and when printing became firmly established in
1585 it began to reflect faithfully the current tendencies of thought
and study in the University. Theology is predominant, animated on its
controversial side with fierce opposition to the Church of Rome, but the
quieter fields of classical work are well represented, and side by side
is seen an increasing study of English literature. Of lighter books
there are few, and of chapbooks perhaps only one (1603, no. 5).
The most important works produced at Oxford between 1585 and 1640 were
Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon (1599), Wycliff’s treatises (1608), capt.
John Smith’s Map of Virginia (1612), Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
(1621, &c.), Field on the Church (1628, &c.), Sandys’ translations of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1633), the University Statutes (1634), Chaucer’s
Troilus and Cressida in English and Latin (1635), Chillingworth’s
Religion of Protestants (1638), and Bacon’s Advancement and Proficience
of Learning, in English (1640: see frontispiece). There are of course
many books on logic, philosophy and the like, intended for the
University curriculum, and many collections of the rhetorical poems by
which the University was expected to condole or rejoice with every
change in the royal estate. 180 pages of mechanical grief at Elizabeth’s
death in 1603 are at once followed by 200 pages of equally mechanical
congratulations to James I: and the metrical tears dropped in turn on
the grave of the latter monarch in March 1625, are in May succeeded with
indecorous haste by songs of joy on the marriage of his successor. Some
volumes of English poems and plays occur, by Skelton, Nicholas Breton,
Churchyard, Fitz-Geffrey, Randolph, Cartwright, Fletcher, and others,
and a few still lighter pieces, such as a Masque at Richmond, partly in
Wiltshire dialect, and “Bushell’s Rock,” both in 1636. There are traces
of the study of Spanish, French and Welsh, as well as of Latin and
Greek; and an attempt to introduce phonetic writing and spelling was
made by Charles Butler in 1633 and 1634. Even theological disputes are
lightened by the solemn account of certain Jesuits in the East, who
dressed up a carcase as that of a queen recently deceased, obtained much
glory from the miracles it wrought, until the real corpse arrived and
the priests vacated the vicinity (1633, Gregorius). There is something
surprising in Oxford being chosen as the printing-place of a book to
persuade mothers to nurse their own children (1622, Clinton); and an
episcopal alchemist is not often to be met with in real life (1621,
Thornborough). It is less to be wondered at that a college which had
leased land to Queen Elizabeth for a quiet five thousand years, should
try to be relieved of its agreement within fifty (1623, Oxford).
There is no need of a general history of the University Press at this
time, as distinguished from the annals which the Appendixes of this work
present. The printers were privileged members of the University, and
occasionally printed “cum privilegio,” but there is little to invest
their personal proceedings with importance. Though it is true that money
was advanced in 1585 by the Earl of Leicester, Chancellor of the
University, to set up Joseph Barnes with a new press, and that the
charter of privileges in 1632 gave the University direct control of the
printing, there are as yet few signs of actual academical patronage or
interference, and the failures and successes of the printers and
publishers, which can be traced in detail in Appendixes C and F, are the
ordinary fluctuations of trade. Nor can the Oxford press at this time
claim much connexion with the greater world of the English Court or
Church. After it was placed on a permanent footing by the Earl of
Leicester, its one great patron and protector within our period was
Archbishop Laud, who occupied a similar position to that of Bishop Fell
at a later period in the same century.
The year 1640 has been chosen as the inferior limit of this
bibliography, partly because both the British Museum Catalogue of early
English books and Arber’s Transcript of the Registers of the Stationers’
Company stop at that point, partly because the interest in the products
of the press as such was found to be rapidly diminishing, and partly in
consequence of the break-up of all quiet progress during the convulsions
of the Rebellion, combined with the dismal prospect of that trackless
wilderness—the literature of the Civil War.
The present bibliography presents, it is believed, four features of
novelty:—the better representation of the titlepage by the use of Roman
and Italic capitals as well as ordinary type; the mention of the chief
type used in each book; the furnishing of the first words of certain
pages, to facilitate the identification of imperfect copies; and the
insertion of actual pages[2] of books printed at Oxford, selected from
works which are cheap and common. These points are explained and
discussed in a paper on ©Method in Bibliography©, printed at pp. 91–106
of vol. 1 of the Transactions of the Bibliographical Society (1893), to
which the reader is referred, if he wishes to see a fuller account of
the whole aim and method of the present book.
The best thanks of the writer are due for general help to Mr. E. Gordon
Duff, Librarian of the John Rylands (late Spencer) Library at
Manchester, to Mr. F. J. H. Jenkinson, Librarian of the Cambridge
University Library, and to Mr. W. H. Allnutt of the Bodleian: but
especially to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press both for undertaking
on liberal terms a work which can scarcely prove remunerative, and for
enabling the Oxford Historical Society to supply copies to its members,
as vol. xxix, at a price far below its actual cost[3]. Mr. Horace Hart,
the Controller of the Press, has taken a warm personal interest in the
printing, and any merits of form which may be found are due to his
experience and to the co-operation of his compositors. Nothing, however,
can relieve the writer of responsibility for the errors and shortcomings
which will be detected; and he can only plead that it is better to bring
out an imperfect book, if it is a useful one and the result of hard
work, than, by straining after an unattainable completeness, to delay
indefinitely its publication.