Oxford University Press fromOxford University Press ( OUP) is the largest in the world, and the second oldest after. It is a department of the and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the vice-chancellor known as the delegates of the press. They are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies.
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Oxford University has used a similar system to oversee OUP since the 17th century. The Press is located on, opposite, in the suburb of. Contents.Early history The university became involved in the print trade around 1480, and grew into a major printer of Bibles, prayer books, and scholarly works. OUP took on the project that became the in the late 19th century, and expanded to meet the ever-rising costs of the work. As a result, the last hundred years has seen Oxford publish children's books, school textbooks, music, journals, the World's Classics series, and a range of English language teaching texts. Moves into international markets led to OUP opening its own offices outside the, beginning with in 1896. With the advent of computer technology and increasingly harsh trading conditions, the Press's printing house at Oxford was closed in 1989, and its former paper mill at was demolished in 2004.
By contracting out its printing and binding operations, the modern OUP publishes some 6,000 new titles around the world each year.The first printer associated with Oxford University was. A business associate of, Rood seems to have brought his own wooden printing press to Oxford from as a speculative venture, and to have worked in the city between around 1480 and 1483. The first book printed in Oxford, in 1478, an edition of 's Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, was printed by another, anonymous, printer.
Famously, this was mis-dated in Roman numerals as '1468', thus apparently pre-dating Caxton. Rood's printing included John Ankywyll's Compendium totius grammaticae, which set new standards for teaching of.After Rood, printing connected with the university remained sporadic for over half a century. Records or surviving work are few, and Oxford did not put its printing on a firm footing until the 1580s; this succeeded the efforts of, which had obtained a licence for its press in 1534. In response to constraints on printing outside imposed by and the, Oxford petitioned for the formal right to operate a press at the university. The, pleaded Oxford's case. Some royal assent was obtained, since the printer began work, and a decree of noted the legal existence of a press at 'the universitie of Oxforde' in 1586.
17th century: William Laud and John Fell Oxford's chancellor, consolidated the legal status of the university's printing in the 1630s. Laud envisaged a unified press of world repute. Oxford would establish it on university property, govern its operations, employ its staff, determine its printed work, and benefit from its proceeds. To that end, he petitioned for rights that would enable Oxford to compete with the Stationers' Company and the, and obtained a succession of royal grants to aid it. These were brought together in Oxford's 'Great Charter' in 1636, which gave the university the right to print 'all manner of books'. Laud also obtained the 'privilege' from the Crown of printing the or of at Oxford.
This 'privilege' created substantial returns in the next 250 years, although initially it was held in abeyance. The Stationers' Company was deeply alarmed by the threat to its trade and lost little time in establishing a 'Covenant of Forbearance' with Oxford. Under this, the Stationers paid an annual rent for the university not to exercise its full printing rights – money Oxford used to purchase new printing equipment for smaller purposes.Laud also made progress with internal organization of the Press. Besides establishing the system of Delegates, he created the wide-ranging supervisory post of 'Architypographus': an academic who would have responsibility for every function of the business, from print shop management to.
The post was more an ideal than a workable reality, but it survived (mostly as a ) in the loosely structured Press until the 18th century. In practice, Oxford's -Keeper dealt with sales, accounting, and the hiring and firing of print shop staff.Laud's plans, however, hit terrible obstacles, both personal and political. Falling foul of political intrigue, he was executed in 1645, by which time the had broken out. Oxford became a stronghold during the conflict, and many printers in the city concentrated on producing political pamphlets or sermons. Some outstanding mathematical and works emerged at this time—notably, texts edited by, the of —but no university press on Laud's model was possible before the in 1660.
Matrices for casting type collected by Bishop Fell, part of his collection now known as the 'Fell Types', shown in the OUP MuseumIt was finally established by the, of, of Oxford, and Secretary to the Delegates. Fell regarded Laud as a, and was determined to honour his vision of the Press.
Using the provisions of the Great Charter, Fell persuaded Oxford to refuse any further payments from the Stationers and drew all printers working for the university onto one set of premises. This business was set up in the cellars of the new, where Fell installed printing presses in 1668, making it the university's first central print shop. A type foundry was added when Fell acquired a large stock of typographical and matrices from the —the so-called '. He also induced two Dutch typefounders, Harman Harmanz and Peter de Walpergen, to work in Oxford for the Press. Finally, defying the Stationers' demands, Fell personally leased the right to print from the university in 1672, in partnership with Thomas Yate, Principal of, and, Principal of.Fell's scheme was ambitious.
Besides plans for academic and religious works, in 1674 he began to print a calendar, known as the Oxford Almanack. Early editions featured symbolic views of Oxford, but in 1766 these gave way to realistic studies of the city or university. The Almanacks have been produced annually without interruption from Fell's time to the present day.Following the start of this work, Fell drew up the first formal programme for the university's printing. Dating from 1675, this document envisaged hundreds of works, including the Bible in, editions of the and works of the, texts in and, comprehensive editions of, poetry, and mathematics, a wide range of scholarship, and also 'a history of, more perfect than any yet Extant.' Though few of these proposed titles appeared during Fell's life, Bible printing remained at the forefront of his mind. A full variant Greek text of proved impossible, but in 1675 Oxford printed a King James edition, carrying Fell's own textual changes and spellings.
This work only provoked further conflict with the Stationers' Company. In retaliation, Fell leased the university's Bible printing to three rogue Stationers, Peter Parker, and, whose sharp commercial instincts proved vital to fomenting Oxford's Bible trade. Their involvement, however, led to a protracted legal battle between Oxford and the Stationers, and the litigation dragged on for the rest of Fell's life. He died in 1686.
18th century: Clarendon Building and Blackstone Yate and Jenkins predeceased Fell, leaving him with no obvious heir to oversee the print shop. As a result, his will left the partners' stock and lease in trust to Oxford University, and charged them with keeping together 'my founding Materialls of the Press.' Fell's main trustee was the Delegate, Dean of Christ Church, who took a keen interest in the decorative work of Oxford's books.
He and his colleagues presided over the end of Parker and Guy's lease, and a new arrangement in 1691 whereby the Stationers leased the whole of Oxford's printing privilege, including its unsold scholarly stock. Despite violent opposition from some printers in the Sheldonian, this ended the friction between Oxford and the Stationers, and marked the effective start of a stable university printing business.In 1713, Aldrich also oversaw the Press moving to the. This was named in honour of,.
Oxford lore maintained its construction was funded by proceeds from his book The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702–04). In fact, most of the money came from Oxford's new Bible printer —and the Vice-Chancellor defaulted with much of the proceeds from Clarendon's work.
In any event, the result was 's beautiful but impractical structure beside the Sheldonian in. The Press worked here until 1830, with its operations split into the so-called Learned Side and Bible Side in different wings of the building.Generally speaking, the early 18th century marked a lull in the Press's expansion. It suffered from the absence of any figure comparable to Fell, and its history was marked by ineffectual or fractious individuals such as the Architypographus and antiquary, and the flawed project of Baskett's first Bible, a gorgeously designed volume strewn with misprints, and known as the after a glaring typographical error in. Other printing during this period included 's contemplative texts, and 's six-volume edition of, (1743–44). In retrospect, these proved relatively minor triumphs. They were products of a university press that had come to embody increasing muddle, decay, and corrupt practice, and relied increasingly on leasing of its Bible and prayer book work to survive.The business was rescued by the intervention of a single Delegate,. Disgusted by the chaotic state of the Press, and antagonized by the, Blackstone subjected the print shop to close scrutiny, but his findings on its confused organization and sly procedures met with only 'gloomy and contemptuous silence' from his colleagues, or 'at best with a languid indifference.'
In disgust, Blackstone forced the university to confront its responsibilities by publishing a lengthy letter he had written to Huddesford's successor, in May 1757. Here, Blackstone characterized the Press as an inbred institution that had given up all pretence of serving scholarship, 'languishing in a lazy obscurity a nest of imposing mechanics.' To cure this disgraceful state of affairs, Blackstone called for sweeping reforms that would firmly set out the Delegates' powers and obligations, officially record their deliberations and accounting, and put the print shop on an efficient footing. Nonetheless, Randolph ignored this document, and it was not until Blackstone threatened legal action that changes began. The university had moved to adopt all of Blackstone's reforms by 1760.By the late 18th century, the Press had become more focused. Early law had begun to undercut the Stationers, and the university took pains to lease out its Bible work to experienced printers.
When the deprived Oxford of a valuable market for its Bibles, this lease became too risky a proposition, and the Delegates were forced to offer in the Press to those who could take 'the care and trouble of managing the trade for our mutual advantage.' Forty-eight shares were issued, with the university holding a controlling interest. At the same time, classical scholarship revived, with works by and, as well as early 19th-century texts edited by a growing number of academics from mainland – perhaps the most prominent being. Both prepared editions at the invitation of the scholar, who served as a Delegate for 50 years. During his time, the growing Press established distributors in, and employed the bookseller Joseph Parker in for the same purposes in Oxford.
Parker also came to hold shares in the Press itself.This expansion pushed the Press out of the Clarendon building. In 1825 the Delegates bought land in Walton Street. Buildings were constructed from plans drawn up by and, and the Press moved into them in 1830. This site remains the main office of OUP in the 21st century, at the corner of and, northwest of Oxford city centre.19th century: Price and Cannan. This section needs expansion. You can help.
Balter, Michael (16 February 1994). Retrieved 28 June 2011.
OUP Academic. Retrieved 3 August 2018. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 3 August 2018. Carter p.
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Sutcliffe pp. 141–48. Sutcliffe pp. 117, 140–44, 164–68. Sutcliffe p. 155. Sutcliffe pp.
113–14. Sutcliffe p. 79.
Sutcliffe pp. 124–28, 182–83. See chapter two of Rimi B. Chatterjee, Empires of the Mind: A History of the Oxford University Press in India During the Raj (New Delhi: OUP, 2006) for the whole story of Gell's removal.
Milford's Letterbooks. Ngugi wa Thiongo, 'Imperialism of Language', in Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedom translated from the Gikuyu by and Ngugi wa Thiong'o (London: Currey, 1993), p. 34. Kenneth T. Jackson, ed: The Encyclopedia of New York City p.
870.: 1995;; The. For an account of the Sacred Books of the East and their handling by OUP, see chapter 7 of 's Empires of the Mind: a history of the Oxford University Press in India during the Raj; New Delhi: OUP, 2006., 'Canon Without Consensus: and the 'Oxford Book of Bengali Verse'. 4: 303–33. See Rimi B. Chatterjee, 'Pirates and Philanthropists: British Publishers and Copyright in India, 1880–1935'. In Print Areas 2: Book History in India edited by Swapan Kumar Chakravorty and Abhijit Gupta (New Delhi: Permanent Black, forthcoming in 2007). See Simon Nowell-Smith, International Copyright Law and the Publisher in the Reign of Queen Victoria: The Lyell Lectures, University of Oxford, 1965–66 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).
Beachey, RW (1976). 'The East Africa ivory trade in the nineteenth century'. The Journal of African History. 8 (2): 269–290. ^ Sutcliffe p. 210. ^ Hinnells p.
4. Sutcliffe p. 211.
^ Oxford p. 6. Hinnells p. 8.
Hinnells pp. 18–19; OUP joined in 1936. Sutcliffe p. 168.
Hinnells p. 17. ^ Sutcliffe p. 212. Hinnells p.
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An Informal History of the OUP. Oxford: OUP.Further reading. Gadd, Ian, ed.
Oxford: OUP. Eliot, Simon, ed. Oxford: OUP., ed. Oxford: OUP. Also online DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/406.001.0001., ed. Oxford: OUP.External links.