The fifteenth edition of Hart’s Rules was published in March 1904 by Henry Frowde in London and printed by Horace Hart in Oxford. The list of editions has returned to the front, facing the full title, and the examples of proofreading marks has moved to the back. This edition, 45 pages long, was the first to include a preface, which described the book’s creation and evolution; this would, with additions, become a feature of all subsequent editions of Hart. In addition, an index was included for the first time, beginning on p. 40, following the three appendixes.

The comparatively large number of changes found in this edition coincided with the decision, described in the preface, to sell the book commercially for the first time, price sixpence net.

• Front and back cover (click to see pop-up image, 45k)
• Full-title (click to see pop-up image, 30k)
• Pages 2 and 3 (preface, text below), 4 and 5 (preface), 6 and 7 (contents), 8 and 9, 10 and 11, 12 and 13, 14 and 15, 16 and 17, 18 and 19, 20 and 21, 22 and 23, 24 and 25, 26 and 27, 28 and 29, 30 and 31, 32 and 33, 34 and 35, 36 and 37, 38 and 39 (marks used in the correction of proofs), 40 and 41, 42 and 43, 44 and 45 (colophon and inside back cover)
  

PREFACE

It is quite clearly set out on the title-page in all editions of these Rules and Examples, that they were intended especially for Compositors and Readers at the Clarendon Press. Consequently it seems necessary to explain why an edition or impression is now offered to so much of the General Public as is interested in the technicalities of Typography, or wishes to be guided to a choice amidst alternative spellings.

On the production of the First Edition at the Oxford Press, copies were placed in the hands of all Readers, Compositors, and Compositor-apprentices; and other copies found their way into the hands of Authors and Editors of books then in the printers’ hands. Subsequently, friends of authors, and readers and compositors in other printing offices, began to ask for copies, which were always supplied without charge. By and by applications for copies were received from persons who had no absolute claim to be supplied gratuitously; but as many of such requests came from Officials of King’s Government at Home, in the Colonies, and in India, it was thought advisable, on the whole, to continue the practice of presentation.

Recently, however, it became know that copies of the booklet were on sale in London. A correspondent wrote that he had just bought a copy ‘at the Stores’; and as it seems more than complaisant to provide gratuitously what may afterwards be sold for profit, the writer has no alternative but to publish this little book.

As to the origin and progress of the work, it was begun in 1864, when the compiler was a member of the London Association of Correctors of the Press. With the assistance of a small band of fellow members employed in the same printing-office as himself, a first list of examples was drawn up, to furnish a working basis.

Fate so ordained that, in course of years, the writer became in succession general manager of three London printing-houses. In each of these institutions additions were made to his selected list of words, which, in this way, gradually expanded – embodying what compositors term ‘the Rule of the House.’

In 1883, as Controller of the Oxford Press, the writer began afresh the work of adaptation; but pressure of other duties deferred its completion nearly ten years, for the first edition is dated 1893. Even at that date the book lacked the seal of final approval, being only part of a system of printing-office management.

Ultimately, Dr. J. A. H. Murray and Mr. Henry Bradley, editors of the New English Dictionary, were kind enough to revise and approve all the English spellings. Bearing the stamp of their sanction, the booklet has an authority which it could not otherwise have claimed.

To the later issues Professor Robinson Ellis and Mr. H. Stuart Jones have contributed two appendices, containing instructions for the Division of Words in printing Latin and Greek. A third appendix has been added, on the authority of Sir J. A. H. Murray, showing how to print some Proper Names in the Possessive Case.

H.H.

Mar., 1904.

 

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