The World's Classics

Oxford World's Classics is an imprint of Oxford University Press. First established in 1901 by Grant Richards and purchased by the Oxford University Press in 1906, this imprint publishes primarily dramatic and classic literature for students and the general public. Its competitors include Penguin Classics, Everyman's Library, and the Modern Library. Most titles include critical apparatus – usually, an introduction, bibliography, chronology, and explanatory notes – as is the case with Penguin Classics.

The World's Classics imprint was created by London publisher Grant Richards in 1901. Richards had an 'ambitious publishing programme', and this ambition led to the liquidation of Grant Richards in 1905. Henry Frowde, manager of the Oxford University Press, purchased the series in October 1905.

The Oxford World's Classics were classed as "the most famous works of the English Language" and many volumes contained introductions by distinguished authors, viz. T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, amongst others. The books were marketed as a cheap and accessible series for the general public to read some of the greatest works of literature:

Many of the initial titles in the series are reprints of texts established by the earlier Oxford English Novels series, with revisions.Some of these titles have since been updated with new introductions and notes by different editors, while retaining the original base text.

World's Classics were first published as 'pocket-sized hardbacks'. In response to competition from Penguin, the series was relaunched in paperback format in 1980.To this day, World's Classics are published in paperback, with selected titles in hardback.

The World's Classics series was relaunched in 1998 as Oxford World's Classics.The new series initially had a dark blue and off-white colour scheme, but this was changed to red and off-white after a lawsuit by Penguin Books USA in 1998, alleging an infringement of their trade dress rights through similarities in design. A decade later, a second relaunch followed with a new design for all titles, which retained the basic colour scheme.

Oxford English Drama editions offer a selection of plays, selected from an author's œuvre or as an anthology of plays linked by topic or theme (e. g. Four Revenge Tragedies). Renaissance, Restoration and eighteenth-century plays have glossaries of archaic words appended, in addition to the usual array of critical material. The series' general editor is Michael Cordner of the University of York. Scholar Anne Barton praised the series as a 'splendid and imaginative project', adding that it 'should reshape the canon in a number of significant areas'.

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