Of the Prayer Book as of the Bible a large number of editions is offered to suit all fashions and purposes, and this in spite of the serious risks arising from the liability to change of the ‘royal’ prayers. A demise of the Crown, or the marriage of a Prince of Wales, makes it necessary to print a large number of cancel sheets, which have to be substituted for the old sheets in all copies held in stock or in the hands of booksellers. A hundred years ago there were nineteen Oxford Bibles and twenty-one editions of the Book of Common Prayer. There are now more than a hundred of each. The Revised Version of the Bible, the copyright of which belongs to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge jointly, is also published in a large variety of editions. [Illustration] § 11. _Clarendon Press Books_ By Clarendon Press Books are meant the learned, educational, and other ‘Standard’ works produced under the close supervision of the Delegates and their Oxford Secretariate, and printed at Oxford. These books have a long history, and the Catalogue contains very many titles which have been continuously on sale for nearly a century. The Coptic New Testament of Wilkins, published in 1716, is believed to have been continuously on sale at the original price of 12_s._ 6_d._ until the last copy was sold in 1907, only a few years short of the second century. The current edition of the General Catalogue mentions as ‘the oldest Oxford book still on sale’ another edition of the Coptic New Testament by Woide, published in 1799 and now sold for two guineas; but it has since been noticed that an injustice had been done, and that pride of place should have been given to the Gothic Gospel, a magnificently printed quarto published in 1750, of which some dozen copies (at 30_s._) still remain. These are extreme examples; they are, however, the result not of oblivion or of indifference, but of a policy which has long been and is still being pursued. The Press produces many works of learning which are so securely based that it is known that the demand, however small, will persist as long as there are copies unsold; and it is the practice of the Press to print from type large editions of such books. Clarendon Press books are neither wasted nor sold as remainders, and when a book goes out of print, some natural tears are shed. This is one end of the scale; at the other are books commanding a large and rapid sale, books like the _Oxford Book of English Verse_ or the _Concise Oxford Dictionary_ and _livres de circonstance_ like _Why We are at War_, which was published in September 1914 and in a few months went through twelve impressions and was translated into six foreign languages. Books of this kind are produced in mass, as cheaply as is consistent with a high standard of workmanship, and are sold all over the world in competition with rival publications and by the employment of appropriate methods of advertisement.