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
Oxford 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.)
