The activities of the Press in India are of relatively recent date. Until 1912, when a branch was opened in Bombay, Oxford books had been accessible only to those who were determined to procure them. The existence of a distributing centre made it possible to reach more directly the educational and the general public. But it early became apparent to the Manager—Mr. E. V. Rieu of Balliol College—that the educational needs of India could only to a small extent be met by direct importation; that it was necessary to adapt existing books to the special requirements of the country, and to create new books similar in kind. In the course of a few years many such books were produced, at first chiefly in England, but later to an increasing degree in India itself. By 1918 at least a dozen native presses were engaged in printing and binding for the Branch. These books range from ‘simplified classics’ to editions of Shakespeare’s plays, from school geographies to handbooks for students of medicine and law. At the same time the sale of more advanced Oxford books was largely increased. A brief description is given elsewhere of the books produced at Oxford upon the history and art of India as well as upon its classical literature and its religions. Books like Mr. Vincent Smith’s Early History of India and his Fine Art in India command a wide sale among the educated natives of India.
Another field of enterprise is in vernacular education. Here the opportunities are vast, but the difficulties are great, for in most provinces many languages are spoken, and no one press is adequately equipped with the numerous founts of type required to deal with the vernaculars of India as a whole. The Branch was therefore fortunate in being, in 1916, invited by the Government of the Central Provinces to produce a series of Readers—in Hindi and Marathi—for use in schools throughout the province. At that time no paper could be imported from England, and the staff of the Branch was depleted by war. Nevertheless, within a year over half a million volumes had been written, printed, and illustrated, and were ready for distribution over a country nearly twice as large as England and Wales.
The activities of the Branch in placing the issues of the War before Indian readers in a true light attracted in 1918 the attention of Government; and the Branch was engaged by the Central Publicity Bureau to produce an illustrated War Magazine and a mass of pamphlets in English and the vernacular tongues.
In spite of these preoccupations the Branch has been able to emulate the activities of the Press at home by co-operating with learned bodies in India to produce books of scientific value. Notable among its publications in this kind are the historical treatises of Mr. Rawlinson, Mr. Kincaid, Mr. Mookerji, and other writers, and the economic studies published on behalf of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.
Mention may also be made here of the Classics of Indian History which are being issued by the Press. In reviewing the latest volume of the series—Meadows Taylor’s Story of My Life—The Times Literary Supplement says: ‘It is one of those books from which history hereafter will be written. The great books—in one sense or other—like Colonel Mark Wilks’s Historical Sketches of Southern India, Grant Duff’s History of the Mahrattas, Tod’s Rajasthan, Broughton’s Letters from a Mahratta Camp, must be supplemented not only by the native records, which are more and more becoming accessible, but by the personal narratives of Englishmen who lived in out-of-the-way places and entered into the lives of the rural inhabitants of India. Beside Colonel Sleeman’s Reminiscences must be put the autobiography of Meadows Taylor, a much superior book.’ Of the books mentioned by The Times, Sleeman’s and Tod’s have already been issued, uniform with Meadows Taylor’s, Dubois’s Hindu Manners, Bernier’s Travels, Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali’s Mussulmanns, and Cunningham’s Sikhs; editions of Grant Duff and Broughton are in preparation.
Mr. Rieu, when in 1919 reasons of health compelled him to retire, had in a few years proved himself a real pioneer. He had immensely increased the volume of business done by the Branch, and had opened up new and promising fields. His successor, Major G. F. J. Cumberlege, D.S.O., of Worcester College, who was accompanied by Mr. N. L. Carrington, of Christ Church, took over a successful and growing business. The original premises in Bombay had already been outgrown, and new offices opened in Elphinstone Circle. The increase of staff has made it possible to open a new branch in Calcutta—a sub-branch in Madras already existed—and it is confidently hoped that in the near future the business done in Oxford books, and adaptations of them, will be increased in volume, and that the service rendered by Oxford to the Indian Empire will be further enhanced by the activities of its Press.
THE BOMBAY BRANCH
