My copy of Hardy's Pure Mathematics is the eighth edition, printed in 1941. It must have been one of the first books that my father bought as an almost penniless refugee student in England, and the pencilled notations show that he read most of it. It was the first real mathematics book that I attempted to read and, though much must have passed over my head, I can still feel the thrill of reading the construction of the real numbers by Dedekind cuts. One hundred years after it was first published, CUP is issuing this Centenary edition, not as an act of piety, but because A Course In Pure Mathematics remains an excellent seller, bought and read by every new generation of mathematicians.

During most of the nineteenth century, mathematics stood supreme among the subjects studied at Cambridge. Exposure to the absolute truths of mathematics was an essential part of an intellectual education. The most able students could measure themselves against their opponents in mathematical examinations (the Tripos) which tested speed, accuracy and problem-solving abilities to the utmost. However, it was a system directed entirely towards the teaching of undergraduates. In Germany and France there were research schools in centres like Berlin, Göttingen and Paris. In England, major mathematicians like Henry Smith and Cayley remained admired but isolated.

An education that produced Maxwell, Kelvin, Rayleigh and Stokes cannot be dismissed out of hand, but any mathematical school which concentrates on teaching and examining runs the risk of becoming old-fashioned.