§ 4. Illustrated Books
The publication by the Press of beautifully illustrated books is mainly a development of comparatively recent years, and it has been furthered by the progress of collotype printing at Oxford. The catalogue now includes a large number of sumptuous monographs on artistic subjects. In its facsimiles of manuscripts and rare printed books, published on its own account or for the British Museum, the Press has done much to make accessible to scholars the treasures of the great collections. Well-known examples are the magnificent collotype reproduction of the New Testament part of the Codex Sinaiticus (from negatives made at St. Petersburg under the old régime; negatives were fortunately made of the Old Testament part as well, and the reproduction of the whole of this most famous of all manuscripts will before long be completed); and the complete collotype reproduction of the Shakespearian corpus, consisting of the Folio of 1623, which went out of print on publication in 1912, and the Poems and Pericles from the first editions, still on sale.
The Press has also published very numerous reproductions of works of art of all kinds, partly by way of illustrated catalogues of special collections or genres (such as the three folio volumes of Oxford Drawings by the old masters, the numerous coin catalogues, and the cheap collection of British Historical Portraits in half-tone); partly in the form of profusely illustrated monographs, which moreover are all scientific works by experts and not mere collections of pretty pictures with illustrative letterpress.
These works are of great importance to students and collectors, and a select list is appended: Head’s Historia Numorum, Gardner’s Ancient Coinage, Beazley’s and other books on Greek Vases, Hill’s Renaissance Medals, Dalton’s Byzantine Art, Maunde Thompson’s Palaeography, Murray’s History of Chess, ffoulkes’s Armour and Weapons, Rivoira’s Moslem Architecture, Vincent Smith’s Fine Art in India, Sir Aurel Stein’s Khotan and Serindia and other special works on Eastern Art, the important series of monographs on English Church Art written or edited by the late Francis Bond, with his comprehensive Introduction to English Church Architecture in two volumes, and many more too numerous to cite, particularly the great wealth of British Museum catalogues. A very welcome recent accession to the catalogue is supplied by the sumptuous monographs on Italian Masters produced by the Harvard and Princeton University Presses.
The use of illustration is, however, by no means confined to facsimiles and works on the arts. The modern productions of the Press have made an increasing use of illustration both as an embellishment and as a medium of information. School-books in particular are now lavishly illustrated with portraits, maps, diagrams, and other reproductions, often either of modern photographs or of old cuts and engravings carefully chosen, so that the actual men and things of former times may be faithfully mirrored.
The Press prints for the British Museum and other London collections, as well as for the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, very large numbers of postcards in collotype, by means of which a knowledge of our national art treasures is being widely spread.
