This, the largest of all national collections of biography, owes its existence to the enterprise and munificence of the late George Smith, who founded it in 1882. The work was produced by the co-operation of a large number of scholars acting under the direction of the late Sir Leslie Stephen, with whom was afterwards associated Mr. Sidney Lee; and the latter half of the work was produced under Sir Sidney Lee’s sole editorship.
It was produced in sixty-three quarterly volumes, 1885-1900, the arrangement being alphabetical; and the lives of those who died too late to be admitted in their alphabetical place were included by the issue of three supplementary volumes, which brought the work down to the death of Queen Victoria and just past the close of the nineteenth century. The sixty-six volumes were later reissued, with corrections, on thinner paper, three volumes being converted into one; and this edition in twenty-two volumes constitutes the main dictionary from the earliest times to the close of the Victorian era, in the form now on sale. It contains, in rather more than 30,000 pages, some 30,000 lives, each equipped with a select bibliography. The roll of contributors includes many famous names; conspicuous among the articles are those of Sir Leslie Stephen himself, which are models of form and substance, and those of the present Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, Dr. C. H. Firth, whose Life of Cromwell is an acknowledged classic.
Continuing the work of the founder, Mrs. George Smith undertook a Supplement covering the years 1901-1911, which was produced by Sir Sidney Lee in 1912-13. This, as the first of a series of twentieth-century volumes, inaugurated what may be regarded as a second and distinct work.
Further, in 1903 was published in one volume an Index and Epitome to the Dictionary, giving within 1,500 pages 30,000 succinct biographies. The value of this compendium, to the very large non-professional public to whom the main work in twenty-two bulky volumes is not readily accessible, need not be emphasized. It has been thought proper, however, to lay stress upon its usefulness as an independent work of reference, which may fairly be expected to take its place, upon thousands of shelves, along with other compendious dictionaries and encyclopaedias; the Index and Epitome, therefore, along with the Index and Epitome to the Supplement of 1901-11, bound with it, is now issued under the short title of Concise Dictionary of National Biography.
The Dictionary of National Biography, with the responsibility for its maintenance, was offered to the University of Oxford in 1917 and gratefully accepted. Work is now in progress on a further decennial supplement covering the years 1912-21. This supplement will be edited by Mr. H. W. Carless Davis of Balliol and Mr. J. R. H. Weaver of Trinity. The Supplement of 1901-11, the Concise Dictionary, and many volumes of the main work, have recently been reprinted from plates; and the sale of the work shows an improvement when compared with the years preceding the war. Whether it will in the future be found practicable to attempt the systematic revision of the main work must still remain in doubt. The manufacturing expense of a new edition would be very heavy, and could be justified only by searching investigations, leading to a very substantial gain in accuracy, which must occupy years and involve a further heavy expenditure. The total outlay required has been estimated at £100,000, and this perhaps could not be defrayed without the munificence of a second founder. It may, however, be hoped that such a work will not at last languish for lack of funds. Meanwhile, under the direction of Mr. H. W. Carless Davis, the Delegates’ adviser upon the Dictionary, preliminary work is being steadily carried on. Subject-indexes have been prepared; a bibliography is in hand of the biographical literature which has accumulated since the publication of the Dictionary; and various special investigations are being made into periods for which the work is especially in need of revision. When it is remembered that a whole army of scholars was continually at work upon the material of the New English Dictionary for more than a quarter of a century before the first page was sent to press, it will be seen that the material of the Dictionary of National Biography may have to be newly surveyed with something of the same elaboration, if that Dictionary is ever to be rebuilt from its foundations.
In the year 1907 a Joint Committee was formed between the Oxford University Press and Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, under the Directorship of Mr. Humphrey Sumner Milford and Sir Ernest Hodder Williams, which had for its object the production of Medical, Surgical, and Scientific books, under the general title of the ‘Oxford Medical Publications’.
The Committee were peculiarly fortunate in having the invaluable advice and assistance, in the choice of Authors and Subjects, of the late Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford, and a Delegate of the Press.
The key-note of the Oxford Medical Publications has always been the practical character of the treatment. The popular Medical Manuals, Monographs, and the ‘General Practitioner Series’ have now a world-wide reputation, and include a large number of standard works, such as Diseases of the Heart, and Principles of Diagnosis and Treatment in Heart Affections by Sir James Mackenzie, A System of Operative Surgery by F. F. Burghard, C.B., Common Disorders and Diseases of Childhood by G. F. Still, Practical Obstetrics by Professor E. Hastings Tweedy, Guide to Gynaecology in General Practice by Comyns Berkeley and Victor Bonney, The Practitioner’s Encyclopaedia of Medical Treatment, The Practitioner’s Encyclopaedia of Medicine and Surgery.
By the acquisition in 1908 of Mr. Young J. Pentland’s business, leading Text-books by the most eminent Scottish authors were incorporated, including such well-known books as Cunningham’s Text-book of Anatomy and Manual of Practical Anatomy, Muir and Ritchie’s Manual of Bacteriology, Thomson and Miles’s Manual of Surgery, Waring’s Manual of Operative Surgery, Thomson’s Outlines of Zoology.
The Oxford Medical Publications were awarded the Grand Prix at the seventeenth International Congress of Medicine held in London in 1913. This award was bestowed for the general excellence of the Students’ books produced in the Series, and for the production of new and original work therein.
In 1916 the Committee sustained a great loss in the death of their Editor, James Keogh Murphy. A further heavy loss was sustained at the end of 1919 by the death of Sir William Osler, whose advice and assistance had always been of inestimable value. After the death of Mr. Murphy, the Editorship was temporarily undertaken by Lieut.-Colonel Sir D’Arcy Power, who was responsible for several important additions to the Series, including the well-known Oxford War Primers of Medicine and Surgery. Towards the close of hostilities Captain Robert McNair Wilson, M.B., Ch.B., late Assistant to Sir James Mackenzie under the Medical Research Committee, became Editor, and under his direction further important additions have been made, including Menders of the Maimed by Professor Arthur Keith, Studies in Neurology by Henry Head, Operative Treatment of Chronic Intestinal Stasis by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, Diagnosis and Treatment of Venereal Diseases in General Practice by Brevet-Colonel L. W. Harrison, D.S.O., Plastic Surgery of the Face by Major H. D. Gillies, C.B.E., R.A.M.C., War Neuroses and Shell Shock by Sir Frederick Mott, K.B.E., Trench Fever by Lieut.-Colonel W. Byam, O.B.E., Clinical Ophthalmology for the General Practitioner by A. Maitland Ramsay, and Tropical Ophthalmology by Lieut.-Colonel R. H. Elliot, I.M.S. The present Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, Sir Archibald Garrod, is a Delegate of the Press and an Oxford author.
The Oxford Catalogue now devotes many pages to the medical list, and the American Branch, by the publication of the encyclopaedic ‘loose-leaf’ Oxford Surgery, has produced an important and valuable adaptation of a British original. In the Quarterly Journal of Medicine the University possesses one of the most valuable scientific journals in the world; and in the other medical publications it administers what is at once a valuable property and a powerful instrument of education. Oxford medical books are known wherever English is spoken.
The more recent activities of the Press include a notable enterprise, started by Mr. Henry Frowde jointly with Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, but now carried on by Mr. Milford alone. This was the foundation in 1907 of a new department for the issue of educational works for elementary schools, and of ‘gift-books’, useful and recreative literature, for young people of all ages. The Oxford Reading Books, which headed the list, set a new literary standard for books of the class; and the series established itself not only in this country but in parts of the Empire so remote and so diverse as Australia and Burma. It was followed by further series of reading books, and of books on history, geography, arithmetic, nature study, and other subjects of the elementary curriculum. The part taken by the Press in the educational system of the English-speaking world may now be said to comprehend the whole scholastic field from the infant school upwards.
Concurrently with the school publications, the J. Department, as it is known for convenience, has issued from Falcon Square a great variety of books for the leisure hours of boys and girls. These include finely illustrated editions of classics, such as Robinson Crusoe, Grimm’s Tales, Kingsley’s Water Babies, Alice in Wonderland; books on nature, science, industry, imperial history; miscellanies both instructive and entertaining; stories for boys, girls, and young children; and for the very youngest, picture books of all kinds.
All these publications are edited with care, and both on the literary and on the artistic side a high level of excellence is aimed at. Some two million copies of the books are distributed during the year.
| Part of the first lines of the Great Charter of the University granted by Charles I on March 3, 1635/6, in which the printing privileges, first granted on Nov. 12, 1632, were finally confirmed and settled. The large initial C contains a portrait of the King in his robes. The original is preserved among the University Archives. The portion relating to Printing is reproduced in full in Madan’s Oxford Books, vol. ii, pp. 526-30. | Frontispiece |
| Device used on the back of the Title of Sphæra Civitatis, Oxford 1588 | Page 10 |
| Four Founders of the Oxford University Press: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; Archbishop Laud; Dr. John Fell; Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon | Facing 10 |
| The Old Congregation House (interior), Domus Typographica. The first printing-house owned by the University, used not for the process of printing, but for storing Oriental type and printing furniture, and assigned to this object by Convocation on June 3, 1652. Until the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre in 1669 the actual printing was done in the private houses of the University Printers | Facing 11 |
| Upper Part of the first page of the Oxford (now London) Gazette, 1665. The oldest newspaper or periodical still existing in England | Page 11 |
| Oxford University Arms. Some ancient examples used by the Oxford University Press between 1517 and 1786 | Pages 12, 13 |
| Illustration from The History of Lapland by John Shefferus, 1674, the first anthropological book published by the Press | Page 14 |
| ‘The Prospect of Aleppo.’ From W. Maundrell’s Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, Oxford 1703, engraved by M. Burghers | Page 15 |
| Title-page of Anthony Wood’s Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, published in 1674 | Page 17 |
| The Three University Presses: The Sheldonian Theatre; The Clarendon Building; The Press of to-day | Page 19 |
| The Quadrangle of the University Press at Oxford | Facing 20 |
| Fire-place in the Delegates’ Room, Clarendon Building; Grinling Gibbons Fire-place in one of the London Offices | Facing 21 |
| Specimens of Fell Types (see p. 15) | Page 24 |
| Specimens of old Music Types and of present-day Roman and Italic Founts | Page 25 |
| Specimens of Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Slavonic, Oriental, and Hieroglyphic Types | Pages 26-7 |
| Ancient Oak Frames in one of the Composing Rooms; The Upper Composing Room; The Monotype Casters; Ink-making; The Old Machine Room; A Perfecting Machine with Self-feeder; The Old Bindery; One of the Warehouses | Between 28 and 29 |
| The Nagel Building: the New Bindery and the Crypt | Facing 30 |
| The War Memorial | ” 31 |
| Wolvercote Paper Mill; Rag-sorting; Rag-cutting; Rag-boiling; Rag-breaking; Beater Room; Machine Room; Paper-sorting; Stock Warehouse | Between 36 and 37 |
| Amen Corner, London | Facing 38 |
| Examples of Oxford Imprints, fifteenth to eighteenth centuries | Pages 46-7 |
| Title-page of the First Oxford Bible, 1675 | Page 56 |
| Title-page of the Altar Service used at the Coronation of King George V, 1911 | Page 57 |
| Title-page of David Wilkins’s Coptic New Testament, published in 1716 | Page 60 |
| The Bombay Branch | Facing 66 |
| The Toronto Branch | ” 67 |
| The Melbourne Branch | ” 68 |
| The South African Branch | ” 69 |
| The New York Branch | ” 70 |
| Show Rooms at the New York Branch | ” 71 |
| Title-page of Shakespeare’s England, published in 1916 | Page 79 |
| Specimen of Work done by M. Burghers, Engraver to the University about 1700 | Page 86 |
| Specimen of Work done in the Studio of the Clarendon Press to-day | ” 87 |
| Illustration from Lily’s Latin Grammar, Oxford 1692 | ” 88 |
| One of the drawings by Henry Ford for A School History of England by C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling, 1911 | Page 89 |
| Gateway of the Old Ashmolean. The Editorial Staff of the Oxford English Dictionary now carries on its work on the lower floor of this building | Facing 98 |
The Headpieces and Initials on pp. 9, 23, 58, 63, and 73 are taken from Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion (1702), the Bodleian Catalogue of 1738, and other early books printed at the Oxford Press.
The Fell Ornaments on pp. 33, 36, 38, 40, &c., are those used in Sir Thomas Hanmer’s edition of Shakespeare, published in 1744.
The illustration on p. 112 is from Thomas Hearne’s edition of Roper’s Life of Sir Thomas More published at Oxford in 1716.