Our friend, the Professor of Hard Law has just had her second volume on hard law published by Oxford University Press. This is exactly the kind of publication that I associate with OUP. On its website it says: “Oxford University Press is perhaps the most diverse publisher of its type. It publishes in many countries in a variety of different languages, for all levels, and across virtually the whole range of academic disciplines. The main criteria in evaluating a new title are its quality and the contribution it makes to the furtherance of scholarship and education.”
This is why I am always mildly surprised to see that “Winnie the Witch” is one of their bestsellers. Aside from the fact that all of the titles of the books on Winnie’s shelves are in Greek characters (academic joke for men who studied Greek in school – my experience is that this option is even more unlikely to be offered in girls’ schools), these are definitely aimed at the under sixes and I’m not quite sure how they contribute to the furtherance of scholarship and education. Nevertheless, Winnie is a big favourite in the Waffle household and we are familiar with Winnie in French, under which guise we first met her as “Pélagie la sorcière” and in Irish as “Cití Cailleach“. As far as I am aware, the sales and translation rates for the OUP’s more traditional output can in no way match Winnie’s success. Odd but heartening for OUP, I am sure.