Oxford University Press (London, UK; New York, US)
Series dates: 1921-1979
Size: 5″ x 7.5″
“Representative selections from great authors, together with the best critical essays on their work” (Journal of Education, Vol. 61, 1929, p. 388).
Oxford University Press issued the first title in the Clarendon Series of English Literature, under editor D. Nichol Smith, in 1921. The series was numbered, but titles were issued out of order. The series numbers follow alphabetical order until #17, suggesting the first 17 titles were planned as a group and numbered in alphabetical order. The last title was on Donne, the only title issued after WW2, and is probably #24 in the series (although I can’t find any evidence this is the case). Titles are reissued, sporadically, until 1979. Some titles appear later under the imprint of reprint publishers.
#1: 1922: Bacon, with Essays by Macaulay and S.R. Gardiner
#2: 1924: Borrow, with Essays by Richard Ford, Leslie Stephen, and George Saintsbury
#3: 1921: Burke, with Essays by Hazlitt, Arnold, and Others
#4: 1923: Cobbett, with Hazlitt’s Essay and Other Critical Estimates
#5: 1925: Coleridge, with Essays by Hazlitt, Jeffrey, De Quincey, Carlyle, and Others
#6: 1921: Cowper, Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Hazlitt & Bagehot
#7: 1925: Dryden, Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Congreve, Johnson, Scott, and Others
#8: 1923: Fielding, with Essays by Hazlitt, Scott, and Thackeray
#9: 1931: Goldsmith, with Essays by Scott, Macaulay, and Thackeray
#10: 1926: Gray, with Essays by Johnson, Goldsmith, and Others
#11: 1922: Johnson, Prose & Poetry, with Boswell’s Character, Macaulay’s Life, and Raleigh’s Essay
#12: 1922: Keats, Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Robert Bridges, and Others
#13: 1921: Lamb (Charles), Prose & Poetry, with Essays by Hazlitt and De Quincey
#14: 1922: Milton, Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Johnson, Hazlitt, and Macaulay.
#15: 1924: More: Selections from his English Works and from the Lives by Erasmus and Roper
#16: 1923: Spencer, with Essays by Hazlitt, Coleridge, and Leigh Hunt, and Others
#17: 1921: Wordsworth, Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Coleridge, Hazlitt, and De Quincey
#18: 1927: De Quincey, with Essays by Leslie Stephen and Francis Thompson
#19: 1928: Fuller, with Essays by Charles Lamb, Leslie Stephen, & etc.
#20: 1929: Burns, with Essays by Mackenzie, Jeffrey, Carlyle, and Others
#21: 1931: Shelley, Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Browning, Bagehot, Swinburne, and Reminiscences by Others
#22: 1933: Pope: Poetry & Prose, with Essays by Johnson, Coleridge, Hazlitt, &c.
#23: 1939: Arnold. Poetry & Prose. With William Watson’s poem and essays.
#24: 1940: Byron. Poetry and Prose, With Essays by Scott, Hazlitt, Macaulay, &c. Ed. by D. Nichol Smith
#25: 1941: Browning. Poetry and Prose, With Appreciations by Landor, Bagehot, Swinburne, Henry James, Saintsbury, and F.L. Lucas. Ed. by Humphrey Milford.
#26: (?)
#27: (?)
#?: 1946: Landor: Poetry & Prose, with Swinburne’s Poem and Essays by Ernest de Selincourt, Walter Raleigh, & Oliver Elton. With introduction and Notes by E.K. Chambers.
#?: 1946: John Donne: With Izaac Walton’s Life & Appreciations by Ben Jonson, Dryden, Coleridge and Others.
(thanks to George Miller for information on title #24 and after).
Jackets for the series are common in design among titles, with the subject’s name and Oxford imprint in red ink on the brown kraft paper jacket. The front jacket flap lists the Oxford University Press locations around the globe.
The rear of the jacket lists titles in the series through #21, Shelley, published in 1931.
The books are bound in dark blue cloth with silver stamping:
There is no half-title page. A small portrait of the book’s subject, Henry Fielding, faces the title page.
The copyright page includes the first edition date (1923) and this edition, printed in 1931.
