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1. New perspectives on the history of publishing

There is a subtle shift occurring in the examination of the history of the book and publishing. Historians are moving away from a history of individuals towards a new perspective grounded in social and corporate history. From A History of Cambridge University Press to The Stationers’ Company: A History to the new History of Oxford University Press, the development of material texts is set in a new context of institutions.

The University processes in fron of the Sheldonian Theatre and Clarendon Printing House, 1733 (William Williams, Oxonia depicta, plate 6).

The University processes in fron of the Sheldonian Theatre and Clarendon Printing House, 1733 (William Williams, Oxonia depicta, plate 6).

Recently, Dr Adam Smyth, Oxford University Lecturer in the History of the Book, spoke with Ian Gadd, Professor of English Literature at Bath Spa University and the editor of Volume I: From its beginnings to 1780 of the History of Oxford University Press, about the early modern history of the book. They discuss the evolution of university presses, the relationship between Oxford and the London book trade, navigating the division of learned and scholarly publishing and commercial work, and some new insights into the history of the Press, such as setting William Laud’s vision of the Press in the context of university reform and the role of the University’s legal court in settling trade disputes.

Podcast courtesy of the University of Oxford Podcasts.

Ian Gadd is Professor of English Literature at Bath Spa University. He is editor of The History of Oxford University Press, Volume 1: From its beginnings to 1780.

With access to extensive archives, The History of Oxford University Press is the first complete scholarly history of the Press, detailing its organization, publications, trade, and international development. Read previous blog posts about the history of Oxford University Press.

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Image courtesy of OUP Archives. Do not reproduce without permission.

The post New perspectives on the history of publishing appeared first on OUPblog.

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2. A bookish slideshow

From ancient times to the creation of eBooks, books have a long and vast history that spans the globe. Although a book may only seem like a collection of pages with words, they are also an art form that have survived for centuries. In honor of National Library Week, we couldn’t think of a more fitting book to share than The Book: A Global History. The slideshow below highlights the fascinating evolution of the book.



In celebration of National Library Week we’re giving away 10 copies of The Book: A Global History, edited by Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H.R. Woudhuysen. Learn more and enter for a chance to win.

Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen are the authors of The Book: A Global History. Michael F. Suarez S.J. is Professor and Director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. H. R. Woudhuysen is Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.

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The post A bookish slideshow appeared first on OUPblog.

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3. A history of the book

By Michael Suarez and Henry Woudhuysen


And Yet The Books
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.


‘And yet the books’ by Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz (1986) brilliantly captures the relationship ‎between the book as a universal, world-wide object, a thing that exists by the millions and yet is so ‎individual, and the single, solitary writer or reader. How can such a ubiquitous, material phenomenon ‎be at the same time so personal and so transcendent?

Histories of the book have ‎often concentrated on one aspect. Most have been accounts, for example, of medieval ‎manuscripts or of printing in the West or have taken the form of national histories of the book in, say, ‎France, the US, India, or China. More detailed studies look at one or two means of production and ‎publication, at a particular period, or a local phenomenon. However valuable these studies are (and ‎astonishing work has been done on books during the last century), they deny the universality of books, ‎the very feature that makes them such important and internationally significant objects. How could a history of books be taken seriously without thinking about the recent enormous growth in ‎South American publishing, or the way in which book production in India has developed? To say ‎nothing about the book in China and Japan; that would be to miss some of the most striking and visually ‎attractive illustrated books and bindings of the last few centuries that have been enormously ‎influential throughout the world.

Drilled books, Mar. 27, 1913. Source: NYPL.

And not just the book itself as a material object – Mislosz’s “shining chestnuts” – but as an immaterial ‎object. We should seek to cover the development of writing, the oral teachings of the world’s great ‎religious and philosophical leaders, the metaphysical or platonic identity of texts, and the electronic book. We should explore ‎the history

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