§ 4 The Press in London
The association of the Oxford Press with London booksellers—the publishers of former days—goes back to early times. Apart from the negative agreement with the Stationers’ Company, not to print Bibles and Almanacks, we find, at the end of the seventeenth century, Oxford Bibles bearing the imprint of various London booksellers. In 1776 Dr. Johnson wrote to the Master of University College a letter, printed by Boswell, in which he sets forth with knowledge and perspicacity the philosophy of bookselling; the moral of the discourse is that the University must offer more attractive discounts to the book trade—a doctrine which has been adopted in modern times, though in 1776 it perhaps fell upon deaf ears.
Not later than 1770 a Bible Warehouse was established in Paternoster Row. But it was not until a century later that the Press undertook the distribution in London of its secular books. In 1884 these books, formerly sold by Messrs. Macmillan, were taken over by the Manager of the Bible Warehouse, Mr. Henry Frowde, who thus became sole publisher to the University; an office which he continued to hold with great skill, devotion, and success until on his retirement in 1913 he was succeeded by Mr. Humphrey Milford.
To-day the activities of the Press in or near Amen Corner, London, E.C. 4, are multifarious. From his bound stocks Mr. Milford is ready at short notice to supply to the booksellers or booksellers’ agents any Clarendon Press book, any Bible or Prayer Book, any of the books published by himself as publisher to the University, such as Oxford Poets, World’s Classics, Oxford Elementary Books, or by himself and Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton—the Oxford Medical Publications—or for the numerous learned bodies and American Universities for whom he is agent whether in the United Kingdom or universally.
In the premises at Amen Corner alone it is estimated that upwards of three quarters of a million books are at any one time in stock. Packing and distribution is carried on in the basement and also at Falcon Square, where the large export department operates. Mr. Milford also maintains at Old Street a ‘quire’ department from which books in sheets are given out to his own or other binderies, and in Aldersgate Street a bindery from which many of the finest Bibles and other leather books are turned out.
The offices at Amen Corner are the centre of the selling activities of the Press; from them is directed the policy of the branches of the business at home and abroad. An institution so far-flung naturally causes some confusion in the public mind. Inquiries from India have sometimes been addressed to New York, and Mr. Horace Hart treasured an envelope addressed to The Controller of the Universe. In general, however, it is now widely understood that inquiries for books should be addressed (by booksellers, or by the public, if the usual trade channels fail) to Oxford University Press in London or at the nearest Branch (New York, Toronto, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Shanghai, Copenhagen); questions about printing to Controller, Clarendon Press, Oxford, and proposals for publication either to the nearest Branch or direct to the Secretary, Clarendon Press, Oxford.