Books in the Cambridge Library Collection - History of Printing, Publishing and Libraries series

This monumental 1859 book describes the evolution of libraries in Britain, Europe and America from antiquity to the mid-nineteenth century. It examines numerous ecclesiastical, university and civic libraries, and concludes with the author's views on all aspects of library management, focusing particularly on the municipal libraries he fervently promoted.

Written in 1870, this two-volume work covers the period 1570-1870. Volume 1 considers the gatherers of the 'foundation collections', including Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), whose bequest of his collections to George II led directly to the foundation of the Museum, and the administrators and early donors.

First published posthumously, Annals of a Publishing House contains the early history of the influential Scottish publishing house, William Blackwood and Sons, by one of its most successful authors, Mrs Oliphant. Volume 1 covers the early history of the firm, the Edinburgh Magazine, its writers and rivals.

John Johnson (1777-1848) produced this study of the history and art of printing in 1824. Volume 1 deals with the history of printing, and is chiefly derived from the work of other writers, although is still of interest to bibliographers. It contains details of early English books and printers, with illustrations.

Published in 1803, this is the first of a three-volume descriptive catalogue of the Hebrew codices in the personal library of Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi (1742-1831), an authority on Hebrew texts and their variant manuscript readings. Each codex is numbered and its contents described in Latin.

Published in 1893, this lively biography of the influential Victorian businessman and politician W. H. Smith (1825-1891) contains a wealth of fascinating personal, political and social detail, from the newspaper wholesaler's time-critical early-morning despatch operations to late-night dinners with prime ministers and aristocrats.

First published in 1888, Modern Printing Machinery remains a valuable work on the mechanisation of the printing industry in the nineteenth century. It contains detailed information, with illustrations, on all the machinery then in use. It will be of interest to book historians, printers, engineers and industrial archaeologists.

First published in 1837, Hannett's Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the Books of the Ancients is a small but comprehensive physical history of the book as object. He outlines the forms which books took over the centuries, but concentrates on the craft of bookbinding, past and present.

Edward Gordon Duff (1863-1924) was a librarian and bibliographer specialising in the early history of the printed book. This biographical dictionary, first published in 1905, contains short accounts of the lives of printers, bookbinders and booksellers working in England up to 1557, and remains a standard reference work.

M. R. James' detailed and scholarly descriptive catalogue of 183 Latin manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, originally published in 1921, is still much sought after by librarians and researchers. Volume 1 contains the text and Volume 2 consists of 187 plates illustrating varieties of scripts, decorations and covers.

M. R. James' detailed and scholarly descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts in the library of Lambeth Palace, co-authored with the Lambeth Librarian Claude Jenkins and originally published in five parts between 1930 and 1932, has not been superseded and is much sought after by librarians and researchers.

M. R. James' detailed and scholarly descriptive catalogue of over 80 medieval manuscripts in the University Library, Aberdeen, originally published in 1932, is still much sought after by librarians and researchers. It lists the material, dimensions, structure, date, provenance, contents and decoration of the manuscripts, and includes 27 plates.

First published in 1931, Streeter's The Chained Library traces the history of library arrangement in England from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. With many illustrations from cathedral, college, and parish libraries, he shows how library design evolved during these centuries to meet the changing needs of readers.

This 1882 catalogue lists two important collections that provide fascinating insights into nineteenth-century reading habits. The Townshend library was bequeathed in 1868 by the famous occultist and friend of Charles Dickens, while the Wisbech Literary Society (founded in this prosperous port in 1781) contributed works on history, biography and travel.

Originally published in 1908, this study documents the history of the library at Westminster Abbey from 1060 to 1660. The original library was dispersed during the Reformation, and its successor destroyed by a fire in 1694, but the distinguished authors' research on the surviving sources reconstructs a surprisingly detailed account.

First published in 1907, this book sets out the original aims of the Cambridge Modern History alongside examples of its execution in ten extracts. Together, these outline some of the key Victorian ideas of how history should be written, including Lord Acton's insistence on the then new concept of impartiality.

Cambridge University Library houses a vast and internationally important collection of manuscripts. These volumes, first published between 1856-67, contain the first published catalogue of the manuscripts held by the University Library, providing the appearance, condition, age and provenance of the manuscripts. Volume 1 describes classmarks Dd.1-Dd.15.