Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468-1921

by Oxford University Press

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.