The Clerk of Oxford in Fiction (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This 1909 volume traces the evolution of the stock figure of the Oxford clerk in fiction across six centuries, from the days of Chaucer until 1851.  Hulton chose this time period, because, as he says in his preface, “he who would include within a portable volume the complete story of Oxford Clerks in Fiction is as one who strives to ‘shut up the sea with doors.’”