Author Description

In November 2013 Oxford University Press published a major four-volume history of itself. In 2008 I had been asked to write a chapter for volume I, specifically about the operation of the printing side during the hugely important period from 1668 to 1780 which began with the formation of the free-standing Press under John Fell and his partners. As I worked on my chapter it became apparent that, although historian Harry Carter and bibliographer Falconer Madan had delved into many aspects of the topic, their coverage was fragmented, scattered here and there through their writings. There was evidently no single continuous narrative that told the story of the day-to-day business of printing. It is that gap that this book now fills. 00This title, the most ambitious in its research and extent from The Old School Press, is a three-volume work. Volume I covers three key resources of the Press (in particular the Learned Press) and their development: the premises they occupied and how they were used, the management organisation that ran the Press, and the paper it used and its sources. Volume II covers the type it used and its sources. Each of these resources is dealt with chronologically in order to show the changes that occurred and why, as well as providing the foundations for the third volume. Volume III covers the processes of the Learned Press, detailing how a book progressed from its author's copy, via compositor, corrector, press-crew, and rolling-press man to the Warehouse ready for sale.