The Oxford Bible’s Tremendous Production
THE Caxton Magazine gives this interesting information regarding the tremendous scale which the manufacture of the Oxford Bible has now attained:— The Bible publications of the Oxford University Press have been issued for three hundred years, and can be published in one hundred and fifty languages and dialects. Every year six hundred tons of paper are used for this purpose alone. Orders for one hundred thousand Bibles are quite common, and the supply of printed sheets is so great that an order for half a million copies can be readily filled. On an average, from thirty to forty Bibles are furnished every minute, and this number can readily be doubled. There are no fewer than one hundred and ten different editions of the Oxford Bibles in English, varying from the magnificent folio edition for pulpit use to the “brilliant” Bible, the smallest edition of the Scriptures in the world. Of the Revised Version, fourteen editions are published. More than a million copies of the revised New Testament had been ordered before the day of publication in May of 1881, and it is claimed that the workingmen of the establishment refused a bribe of some four thousand pounds to furnish a copy of the book before the day of issue. At the banquet held at the four hundredth celebration of the beginning of the art of printing in England by Caxton, Gladstone took into his hands and exhibited to those present a copy of the Bible which had been printed and bound entirely since midnight of the preceding day. The preparation of the “India paper” used by the Oxford University Press is a business secret of great value. Although frequently imitated, it has never been equaled. The largest folio Bible printed in Oxford measures twelve by nineteen inches, and no erratum has as yet been found in it. The “Brilliant Text Bible” measures 3¾ by 2⅜ inches and is ¾ of an inch thick, and bound weighs less than three ounces. In the seventeen years since the Press has been under the management of Horace Hart, the number of employees has increased from two hundred and seventy-eight to six hundred and fifty.