#odhams

John Bull periodical May 1958

Dating from Anglo-Saxon times, Watford was probably originally a crossing place traversing the marshy Coln Valley and it was this valley that gave birth to the industry for which Watford became famous: printing. At one time at was known as the printing capital of the world. The printing companies to be found in the town included Waterlow and the Sun Engraving Company. Odhams arrived in 1938 and…

Woah there, two posts in the last two days? What is going on?! I know, I know, this is a little crazy but, I just really wanted to write about this book.

Alright, so yesterday when my dad got home from work he handed this to me and said he borrowed it from my nan because it has Romeo and Juliet in it which is on the syllabus for English in Year 10. He went on to tell me and my little sister that we had to be careful because it was my nans when she was at school. It smells really old and sort of like my grandparent's house, which is really comforting because we don't go around there quite as much as I would like and the pages are really thin and fragile like those of a Bible. It has around 37 plays and 7 poems in it and is 1312 pages long. I was looking through it and I found the publisher name but no date to say when it was published. It's a handy little book, especially as it has a 'Index to the Characters in Shakespeare's Dramatic Works' and a Glossary at the back to make it easier to follow the texts. 

The foreword is entitled 'The Magic of Shakespeare' (as seen above) and states in the first paragraph - 'The ordinary man might quite well put the question: Why should I read Shakespeare? - a perfectly legitimate question, for in the world of to-day life is lived at high pressure and our leisure must needs be planned to the best advantage. There is certainly no compulsion to read Shakespeare; there is no law that compels one to read the Bible. But he who is deliberately refrains from contact with a great mind it's unsurpassed source of riches is as one that walks the world in darkness with averted eyes that see not the sun, the moon or the stars. He who knows not Shakespeare is ignorant of a work which is the greatest secular book in the world's literature.'

I love that because it certainly makes me, a 15 year old girl of this day and age where we have modern books and magazines and blogs to read, want to read this book. The author of this foreword remains unknown to me as I can't find a name, but i think he would be quite pleased that it is compulsory to read Shakespeare in schools now. I studied Much Ado About Nothing last year and obviously I'll be looking at Romeo and Juliet soon too. I really enjoyed looking at Much Ado last year, I honestly thought it was really funny, with some great messages and Beatrice was a great heroine! I haven't looked at anymore Shakespeare for fear of not understanding the language, but with the help of the Glossary in the back of this book I hope to find it a lot easier! 

This book was put together and published by Odhams Press Limited which you can read about here or here. It was printed in Great Britain by C. Tiling & Co., Ltd., Liverpool, London and Prescot (as you can see in the above photo). I tried to work out when this book was published and I found out that this company became Odhams Press Limited when it merged with John Ball Magazine in 1920. My Nan was born in 1939 and if this book was hers whilst she was at school I would imagine that it was published somewhere in between 1920 and 1960. I know that that's quite vague but it was quite interesting to try and work it all out.

This was also said on a website I found:

 'The company also owned Ideal Home (founded 1920), and the well-known equestrian magazine Horse and Hound (acquired).

Later, Odhams expanded into book publishing (for example, Winston Churchill's Painting as a Pastime, and an edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare) and comics, including Wham! and Smash!'

I loved researching this book and I found a few websites where the descriptions match the edition of the book I have so if you were interested in maybe purchasing it I'll leave the links below. I also I added it to goodreads so I'll leave a link to that too. Thank you for reading! 

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/Complete-Works-William-Shakespeare-Odhams-Press/464014894/bd

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/COMPLETE-WORKS-WILLIAM-SHAKESPEARE-ODHAMS-PRESS/1331663833/bd

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/Complete-Works-William-Shakespeare-ODHAMS-PRESS/8007891799/bd

http://www.abebooks.com/Complete-Works-William-Shakespeare-Odhams-Press/4900221705/bd

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Complete-Works-William-Shakespeare-Odhams-264-12-/360385979178

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18690627-the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare