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The Serampore Mission Press was established in Serampore in 1800 by William Carey, William Ward and other British Baptist missionaries as an auxiliary of the Serampore Mission. The press produced 212,000 books between 1800 and 1832. The British government, highly suspicious of missionaries, discouraged any missionary work in their territory. Serampore, in the Hooghly district of Bengal, being a Danish colony, provided refuge to Carey and company. The press published religious Christian tracts, Indian literary works, translations of the Bible in twenty five Indian vernaculars and other South Asian languages, but the major contribution of the press was printing vernacular textbooks. The press printed books on grammar, dictionaries, history, legends and moral tales for the Fort William College and the Calcutta School Book Society. The press also started to publish the first Bengali newspaper and magazine from 1818. It published books in almost forty five languages. It was formally closed down in 1837 when the Mission ran into heavy debts, according to Nikhil Sarkar in "Printing and the Spirit of Calcutta", the press merged with the Baptist Mission Press. == History == Printing in Bengal had started in Hoogly where the press of the bookseller Andrews used Bengali types. N. B. Halhed’s ''A Grammar Of the Bengal Language'' was published from this press in 1778. Sir Charles Wilkins had mastered the art of cutting types and he also taught Punchanon Karmoker. William Carey arrived in Calcutta on 11 November 1793. He wanted to print the New Testament in Bengali and therefore purchased ink, paper and Bengali fonts from the type cutting foundry of Punchanon Karmoker in Calcutta. The press was set up in Mudnabatty where Carey had settled, but he could not begin the printing because he did not have an expert printer. The then Governor General of India, Lord Wellesley, did not object to any printing presses being set up outside British occupied land but was strictly against any in English territory. Rev. Mr. Brown informed that Lord Wellesley would enforce censorship on any publication done on English territory outside Calcutta. The British government threatened to arrest missionaries who would trespass on the East India Company’s territory. The Danish Government of Serampore assured Ward that they would provide protection for the missionaries. In 1798 Carey suggested that the missionaries could establish the Mission's headquarters in Serampore. In 1799 William Ward and Joshua Marshman came to Calcutta. In the face of rigid resistance from the Company, Ward and Carey decided to establish the Mission and printing press in Serampore. Carey’s press and other printing paraphernalia were transported to Serampore. Ward was a printer and therefore work on the printing of the Bengali Bible was immediately started in March 1800. Ward also doubled up as the type setter during the early days. In spite of the high rents in Serampore, the missionaries were able to purchase a suitable premise. To appease Lord Wellesley, Rev. Brown had to assure him of the purely evangelical intentions of the press since they had refused to publish a pamphlet that criticized the English government. Rev. Brown also convinced Wellesley that the Bengali Bible published by the press would be useful for the students of the about to be opened Fort William College. Thus began a fruitful and long association between the Serampore Press and the Fort William College. William Carey was appointed as the professor of Sanskrit in the College and after that he published a number of books in Bengali from the press. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Serampore Mission Press」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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