Oxford University Press is one of the oldest and best-known publishing houses in the world. This history, originally published to mark 500 years of printing in Oxford, traces the transformation of the Press from a lucrative Bible house into a great national and international publishing business. Great names in the early history of the Press, like Laud, Fell, and Blackstone, laid sound foundations, but as late as the 1890s the University was censured for sanctioning the publication of the secular and profane literature of Marlowe and Shakespeare.