The prototype of Hart’s Rules was a single broadsheet galley, produced in March 1893. Printed on one side in four columns, it measured a 51 × 240 cm (20 × 9 1/2 inches), and was titled ‘Rules for Compositors and Readers, which are to be observed in all cases WHERE NO SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS ARE GIVEN.’ Beneath this is the instruction ‘NB:—These rules having been compiled for the Compositors’ convenience, readers are instructed to mark any departure from the in the first proof, and to see that the corrections are made before the first proof goes out.’

While no specific information survives regarding the purpose this sheet served, it seems likely that copies were circulated around the printing side, either or simply a preliminary galley-sheet for circulation and comment in advance of the first edition; alternatively, it may have been intended to be posted as an aide-mémoire throughout the printing works. What is certain, however, is that the sheet was intended solely for employees of the Clarendon Press, the learned imprint of OUP. Much of the Press’s work was for other publishers with house styles of their own to be followed, so from the very first these rules were used by default, in the absence of directions to the contrary, rather than imposed unilaterally as a procrustean Diktat: The sheet begins with the caution that ‘a special style’ was always observed in work for a few other publishers, specifically the SPCK (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge) and RTS (Religious Tracts Society). Over time, however, as the volume and authority of the rules grew, and especially once they were published and disseminated widely, these rules-by-default became the default themselves, and far beyond the confines of OUP.

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