Oxford University Press
The year 1478 marked the first book printed in Oxford, establishing a tradition that would eventually become the largest university press in the world. This initial printing occurred just before the Press received its official legal right to print books through a decree issued in 1586. It stands as the second-oldest university press after Cambridge University Press, which was founded in 1534. The University of Oxford began printing around 1480 and quickly became a major producer of Bibles, prayer books, and scholarly works. Archbishop William Laud consolidated the legal status of the university's printing in the 1630s by petitioning Charles I for rights that enabled Oxford to compete with the Stationers' Company and the King's Printer. He obtained a succession of royal grants, and Oxford's Great Charter in 1636 gave the university the right to print all manner of books. Laud also secured the privilege from the Crown of printing the King James or Authorized Version of Scripture at Oxford. This privilege created substantial returns over the next 250 years. Following the English Civil War, Vice-chancellor John Fell installed printing presses in 1668, making it the university's first central print shop. In 1674, OUP began to print a broadsheet calendar known as the Oxford Almanack, produced annually without interruption until 2019. Fell drew up the first formal programme for the university's printing, envisioning hundreds of works including the Bible in Greek, editions of the Coptic Gospels, and texts in Arabic and Syriac.
In 1830, the press entered an era of enormous change when it was still a joint-stock printing business offering learned works to a relatively small readership of scholars and clerics. Thomas Combe joined the press and became the university's Printer until he died in 1872. Combe earned a fortune through his shares in the business but failed to grasp the huge commercial potential of India paper. The best-known text associated with his print shop was the flawed first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, printed by Oxford at the expense of its author Lewis Carroll in 1865. Bartholomew Price transformed OUP towards publishing in its own right after being appointed Secretary in 1868. He helped create the Clarendon Press series of cheap, elementary school books, perhaps the first time that Oxford used the Clarendon imprint. Henry Frowde became vital to OUP's growth, adding new lines of books and presiding over the massive publication of the Revised Version of the New Testament in 1881. Frowde played a key role in setting up the press's first office outside Britain, in New York City in 1896. By the early 20th century, OUP expanded its overseas trade partly due to the efforts of Humphrey Milford, the publisher from 1913 to 1945. In 1928, the press's imprint read London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leipzig, Toronto, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Shanghai. Not all of these were full-fledged branches; in Leipzig there was a depot run by H. Bohun Beet, and in Canada and Australia there were small functional depots. The Depression of 1929 dried profits from the Americas to a trickle, but India became the one bright spot in an otherwise dismal picture.
In 1879, Price took on the publication that led the process to its conclusion: the massive project that became the Oxford English Dictionary. Offered to Oxford by James Murray and the Philological Society, the New English Dictionary was a grand academic and patriotic undertaking. Lengthy negotiations led to a formal contract where Murray was to edit a work estimated to take ten years and cost approximately £9,000. Both figures were wildly optimistic. The Dictionary began appearing in print in 1884, but the first edition was not completed until 1928, thirteen years after Murray's death, costing around £375,000. This vast financial burden and its implications landed on Price's successors. In 1923, OUP established a Music Department at a time when such musical publishing enterprises were rare. OUP bought an Anglo-French Music Company and all its facilities, connections, and resources. It was not until 1939 that the Music Department showed its first profitable year. OUP came to be known as the Clarendon Press when printing moved from the Sheldonian Theatre to the Clarendon Building in Broad Street in 1713. The name continued to be used when OUP moved to its present site in Oxford in 1830. Today, OUP reserves Clarendon Press as an imprint for Oxford publications of particular academic importance. The press publishes a variety of dictionaries including the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Oxford English Dictionary, and Concise Oxford English Dictionary.
OUP is governed by a group of fifteen academics called the Delegates of the Press, appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. The press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. In 1850, the Royal Commission on the workings of the university shook up the press alongside the appointment of new Secretary Bartholomew Price. Price recommended that the press needed an efficient executive officer to exercise vigilant superintendence of the business. By 1884, the year he retired as Secretary, the Delegates bought back the last shares in the business. The press was now owned wholly by the university with its own paper mill, print shop, bindery, and warehouse. Its output increased to include school books and modern scholarly texts such as James Clerk Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity & Magnetism published in 1873. In 1927, 1934, Oxford University Press Inc., New York, was reorganized by Geoffrey Cumberlege to return it to profitability from the lows of the Depression years. Cumberlege would succeed Milford as publisher to the University of Oxford between 1945 and 1956. Since 2001, OUP has financially supported the Clarendon bursary, a graduate scholarship scheme at the University of Oxford.
In February 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa urging the execution of British author Salman Rushdie and all involved in the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. There was outrage when, in April 1989, OUP broke the worldwide embargo and chose to attend the Tehran Book Fair. OUP justified this by saying they felt it certainly wasn't in their interests or Iran's as a whole to stay away. In November 1998, OUP announced the closure, on commercial grounds, of its modern poetry list. Andrew Potter, OUP's director of music, trade paperbacks and Bibles, told The Times that the list just about breaks even. Arts Minister Alan Howarth denounced the closure in February 1999, stating that OUP is not merely a business but a department of the University of Oxford with charitable status. In July 2012, the UK's Serious Fraud Office found OUP's branches in Kenya and Tanzania guilty of bribery to obtain school bookselling contracts sponsored by the World Bank. Oxford was fined £1.9 million for sums received generated through unlawful conduct and barred from applying for World Bank-financed projects for three years.
On the 27th of August 2021, OUP closed Oxuniprint, its printing division, marking the final chapter of OUP's centuries-long history of printing. In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, its Bookshop on the High Street closed. Today, the North American branch in New York City is primarily a distribution branch to facilitate the sale of Oxford Bibles in the United States. It also handles marketing of all books of its parent, Macmillan. By the end of 2021, OUP USA had published eighteen Pulitzer Prize-winning books. OUP as Oxford Journals has been a major publisher of academic journals, both in the sciences and humanities, publishing more than 500 journals on behalf of learned societies around the world. It has been noted as one of the first university presses to publish an open access journal called Nucleic Acids Research. The Oxford Open model applies to the majority of their journals. In December 2023, concerns were raised that OUP had published an academic paper based on genetic data taken from the Uyghur population of Xinjiang. On the 17th of May, The Times reported that Oxford had retracted two studies based on DNA taken from China's Xibe ethnic minority. In July 2025, OUP ended its publication of Forensic Sciences Research following ethical concerns related to research involving DNA data from Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in China.
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Common questions
When was Oxford University Press founded and what was its first printed book?
Oxford University Press began printing books around 1480, with the year 1478 marking the first book printed in Oxford. The press received its official legal right to print through a decree issued on the 2nd of May 1536.
Who established the governance structure for Oxford University Press and when did it change ownership?
The Delegates of the Press govern Oxford University Press as a group of fifteen academics appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. By 1884, the Delegates bought back the last shares in the business, making the press wholly owned by the university.
What major dictionary project did Oxford University Press undertake starting in 1879?
In 1879, Bartholomew Price took on the publication that became the Oxford English Dictionary, which began appearing in print in 1884. The first edition was not completed until 1928, thirteen years after James Murray's death, costing around £375,000.
Why did Oxford University Press close its printing division Oxuniprint in 2021?
Oxford University Press closed Oxuniprint on the 27th of August 2021, marking the final chapter of its centuries-long history of printing. This decision concluded the operational phase of its own printing division after maintaining it for hundreds of years.
When did Oxford University Press open its first office outside Britain and where is it located today?
Henry Frowde set up the press's first office outside Britain in New York City in 1896. Today, the North American branch in New York City serves primarily as a distribution branch to facilitate the sale of Oxford Bibles in the United States.