Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
AN OXFORD TITLE-PAGE, 1640
The
Early Oxford Press
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRINTING AND PUBLISHING AT OXFORD
‘1468’–1640
WITH NOTES, APPENDIXES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
The present work was undertaken early in 1889, and is anattempt to describe in detail the products and working of theOxford Press in its early days. Though eclipsed by the gloriesof the later University Press, the first period, included in thisbook, has a natural importance of its own. The Fifteenth andearly Sixteenth Century presses[1] are necessarily of interest, andwhen printing became firmly established in 1585 it began toreflect faithfully the current tendencies of thought and study inthe University. Theology is predominant, animated on its controversialside with fierce opposition to the Church of Rome, butthe quieter fields of classical work are well represented, and sideby side is seen an increasing study of English literature. Oflighter books there are few, and of chapbooks perhaps only one(1603, no. 5).
The most important works produced at Oxford between 1585and 1640 were Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon (1599), Wycliff’streatises (1608), capt. John Smith’s Map of Virginia (1612),Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621, &c.), Field on theChurch (1628, &c.), Sandys’ translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses(1633), the University Statutes (1634), Chaucer’s Troilusand Cressida in English and Latin (1635), Chillingworth’sReligion of Protestants (1638), and Bacon’s Advancement andProficience of Learning, in English (1640: see frontispiece).There are of course many books on logic, philosophy and thelike, intended for the University curriculum, and many collectionsviof t