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The interface between authors and their readers is a fascinating subject in its own right, revealing a great deal about social attitudes, technological progress, aesthetic values, fashionable interests, political positions, economic constraints and individual personalities. This part of the Cambridge Library Collection reissues classic studies in the area of printing and publishing history that shed light on developments in typography and book design, printing and binding, the rise and fall of publishing houses and periodicals and the roles of authors and illustrators. It documents the ebb and flow of the book trade supplying a wide range of customers with products from almanacs to novels, bibles to erotica, and poetry to statistics.

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179 results in Cambridge Library Collection - History of Printing, Publishing and Libraries

Page 6 of 9

What is an Index?
  • A Few Notes on Indexes and Indexers
  • Henry Benjamin Wheatley
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    04 November 2010
    First published in:
    1879
  • Henry Benjamin Wheatley (1838–1917) was a bibliographer and editor with a prodigious output of books and articles to his name. Brought up after the death of both his parents by his brother Benjamin Robert, himself a skilled bibliographer and cataloguer, Henry worked for many years for the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Arts; he was a founder member of the Library Association, and produced an edition of Pepys' diary which was not superseded until the 1970s. This 1879 work is one of two which he produced on the subject of indexing, and which led him to become known as 'the father of British indexing': the Wheatley Medal awarded by the Society of Indexers is named after him. This book shows the development of indexes, gives rules for their compilation and provides a bibliographical list of important indexes and concordances. It remains a fascinating introduction to the subject.

Annals of a Publishing House
  • Volume 3, John Blackwood
  • Mary Blackwood Porter
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    04 November 2010
    First published in:
    1898
  • Annals of a Publishing House contains the early history of the influential Scottish publishing house, William Blackwood and Sons. From small beginnings, the firm had rapidly become the leading Scottish publishing house, dominating the literary world, particularly through Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Owing to the death of Mrs Oliphant, the commissioned author, Volume 3 was written by Mary Porter, daughter of John Blackwood, sixth son of the founder, and covers his career. Beginning as head of the new London branch, he assumed control of the firm on the death of his uncle Robert in 1852. He reorganised the firm and added its prominence. He formed working relationships with many of the leading Victorian writers, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Edward Bulwer Lytton and Thomas Hardy. He expanded the firm's output to include travel writers such as Burton on India and Speke on the search for the source of the Nile.

Early Printed Books
  • E. Gordon Duff
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    10 March 2011
    First published in:
    1893
  • Edward Gordon Duff (1863–1924) was a bibliographer and librarian with a particular interest in early printed books. He was librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, from 1893 to 1900, and Sandars Reader in Bibliography at Cambridge in 1899, 1904 and 1911. Alongside research and writing he also did freelance cataloguing. Duff's work set new standards of accuracy in bibliography, which he considered a science. Early Printed Books was published in 1893 as part of A. W. Pollard's series Books about Books, and became a standard work on the subject. Duff provides a concise and clear account of the development of printing and its spread from Germany across Europe, country by country, deliberately highlighting some of the less well known aspects of the subject. The book ends with chapters on bookbinding and on the collection and description of early printed books.

Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher
  • Alfred Herbert Palmer
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    04 March 2010
    First published in:
    1892
  • The work of Samuel Palmer (1805–1881) received mixed critical success during his lifetime, and his later life was overshadowed by the death of his elder son. Largely forgotten after his own death in 1881, Palmer began to attract renewed interest in the mid-twentieth century and he is now recognised as a key figure in English Romanticism. First published in 1892, this combination of a biography and a collection of Samuel Palmer's letters was written and compiled by his surviving son, A. H. Palmer, who later, in 1909, burned large quantities of his father's sketchbooks and notebooks. The letters published here, which date from 1829 to 1881, include correspondence with other members of 'the Ancients', such as John Linnell, George Richmond and Edward Calvert. The book also includes a range of sketches and etchings, as well as a catalogue of exhibited works.

A Century of the English Book Trade
  • Short Notices of All Printers, Stationers, Book-Binders, and Others Connected with It from the Issue of the First Dated Book in 1457 to the Incorporation of the Company of Stationers in 1557
  • E. Gordon Duff
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011
    First published in:
    1905
  • Edward Gordon Duff (1863–1924) was a bibliographer and librarian with a particular interest in early printed books. He was librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, from 1893 to 1900, and Sandars Reader in Bibliography at Cambridge in 1899, 1904 and 1911. Alongside research and writing he also did freelance cataloguing. Duff's work set new standards of accuracy in bibliography, which he considered a science. This 1905 work, published by the Bibliographical Society, contains short biographies of all the known participants in the English book trade from 1457 to 1557, whether printers, bookbinders, or stationers, organised in alphabetical sequence. It reveals that during the fifteenth century the majority of printers working in England were foreigners, but after 1500 English representation increased. Although Duff's list has been supplemented by more recent research, it remains a valuable work of reference, and sheds considerable light on the early English book trade.

Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of London and Westminster in the Fifteenth Century
  • E. Gordon Duff
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011
    First published in:
    1899
  • Edward Gordon Duff (1863–1924) was a bibliographer and librarian with a particular interest in early printed books. He was librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, from 1893 to 1900, and Sandars Reader in Bibliography at Cambridge in 1899, 1904 and 1911. Alongside research and writing he also did freelance cataloguing. Duff's work set new standards of accuracy in bibliography, which he considered a science. This study of the early London book trade contains the text of Duff's 1899 Sandars Lectures. William Caxton began printing in England in 1476 at Westminster, but most printers and booksellers working in England at that time were foreigners. Duff covers Westminster and London printing separately, and devotes individual chapters to the related trades of bookselling and bookbinding, which were often carried out by the same person. This reissue also contains Duff's lecture English Printing on Vellum, delivered in 1900.

Memoirs and Recollections of the Late Abraham Raimbach, Esq., Engraver
  • Including a Memoir of Sir David Wilkie
  • Abraham Raimbach
  • Edited by Michael Thomson Scott Raimbach
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011
    First published in:
    1843
  • Born in London, Abraham Raimbach (1776–1843) was one of the most celebrated engravers of his time. Published in 1843, these memoirs recount his career and give expanded first-hand observations on contemporary artists and public figures. Included is an extensive account of his two months in Paris in 1802, including impressions of its people and food (on frog's legs: 'I did not much like the flavour'), together with details of the numerous works of art he viewed. He muses on the possible reasons for the higher social standing afforded to artists in France than in Britain, and seems concerned, as travellers are today, about how far his money will stretch whilst in France. Also included is a short biography of Raimbach's principal collaborator, the painter Sir David Wilkie, written by Raimbach's son. This memoir will be of interest to social and art historians of the early nineteenth century.

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College
  • Volume 1, Nos. 1–354
  • Montague Rhodes James
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1907
  • M. R. James (1862–1936) is probably best remembered as a writer of chilling ghost stories, but he was an outstanding scholar of medieval literature and palaeography, who served both as Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and as Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and many of his stories reflect his academic background. His detailed descriptive catalogues of manuscripts owned by colleges, cathedrals and museums are still of value to scholars today. James' catalogue of the extensive manuscript holdings of Gonville and Caius College was first published in two volumes in 1907-8, and a supplement appeared in 1914. Now reissued in two volumes, it will be welcomed by librarians and researchers alike.

Physiologie de la lecture et de l'écriture
  • Émile Javal
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    04 March 2010
    First published in:
    1905
  • Physiologie de la Lecture and de L'Ecriture (1905) was Émile Javal's seventh book. Initially trained as an engineer, Javal turned to medicine and to ophthalmology when he saw his sister suffering from defects of vision. He became a renowned ophthalmologist, developing the Javal-Schiøtz ophthalmometer, treating strabismus, and founding the Sorbonne's ophthalmology lab. Tragically, Javal developed glaucoma and was blind by 1900. His work investigates the 'physiology of reading and writing', undertaking historical, theoretical, and practical approaches to his subject. Javal's work first examines the history behind reading and writing; he discusses epigraphy, writing, typography, stenography, musical notation, and 'ecriture en relief', a writing system for the blind, before turning to theoretical considerations and concluding with practical deductions. Physiologie represents Javal's interest in advancing a writing system for the blind by studying how the eye reads; his was one of the first works to do so.

Records of the House of Newbery from 1274 to 1910
  • Arthur Le Blanc Newbery
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    01 July 2010
    First published in:
    1911
  • Arthur Le Blanc Newbery's family history, published in 1911, is meticulously researched and easy to read, consolidating a range of resources to provide a comprehensive history of the Newberys. Presented in timeline form using extracts from the various sources, it also includes biographies of members of the related Raikes, Le Blanc, and McClintock families. Central to the history is the life of John Newbery (1713–1767), a well-known publisher, most notably of children's books, and friend of Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith. His relationship with the two men is well documented, and the account is supplemented with extracts from their biographies. Other notable ancestors of Le Blanc Newbery whom he includes in this book are John's son and nephew, both called Francis, the latter of whom first published Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield; and Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock (1819–1907), the Arctic explorer.

Eton and King's
  • Recollections, Mostly Trivial, 1875–1925
  • M. R. James
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    07 July 2011
    First published in:
    1926
  • M. R. James (1862–1936), best remembered today for his ghost stories, was Provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918) and of Eton College (1918–1936). In these memoirs, he tells the story of the times he spent at the two prestigious institutions, providing a vibrant account of the people and experiences that characterised them. Beginning with his first impressions of Eton as a boy, he lends a unique insight into the school, moving on to recount with affection his scholarly and teaching careers in both these 'royal and religious foundations'. Ghosts and games, choirs and Christmases, and dramas and dons are all recalled in vivid detail, creating a colourful picture of academic life during the early twentieth century and the First World War. Anecdotal, touching and often humorous, James' recollections reveal his role in both intellectual and social life at these famous institutions, and his dedication and allegiance to them.

The Catalogue of the Library of the Wisbech Museum
  • Comprising the Books Formerly Belonging to the Wisbech Literary Society, and those of the Townshend Bequest
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    28 July 2011
    First published in:
    1882
  • Wisbech in north Cambridgeshire was a wealthy port in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was home to bankers, writers and influential social reformers including Thomas Clarkson. Its museum, founded in 1847, contains about six thousand books bequeathed by Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798–1868), a friend of Charles Dickens who shared Dickens' fascination with mesmerism and the occult. His library was typical of 'a gentleman of wealth and great culture' and contained works of fiction in several languages, non-fiction and science, many of which were rare and finely bound. Since 1877 the Museum has also housed the library of the Wisbech Literary Society (founded in 1781), which focused on history, biography and travel. This 1882 catalogue of the 12,000 volumes in the two Wisbech collections provides fascinating insights into the reading habits of a successful British business community on the one hand, and an influential Victorian collector on the other.

Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In
  • Henry Benjamin Wheatley
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    28 October 2010
    First published in:
    1880
  • Henry Benjamin Wheatley (1838–1917) was an eminent bibliographer, author and editor who served as assistant secretary to the Royal Society of Arts between 1879 and his retirement in 1908. He also had a particular interest in the life of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), founding the Samuel Pepys Club in 1903 and producing the most reliable edition of Pepys' diary until the Latham edition (1970–1983). This volume, first published in 1880, contains a detailed biography of Pepys. Using contemporary sources, Wheatley discusses Pepys' achievements during the period his diary was kept, his progression in the Navy Board and his resignation in 1689. Wheatley also provides fascinating descriptions of Restoration society, manners and customs, exploring the historical context of Samuel Pepys' life through discussions of various incidents taken from his diary. This volume remains a standard reference for the historical context of Pepys' diary and life.

Treatise on the Laws of Literary Property
  • Comprising the Statutes and Cases Relating to Books, Manuscripts, Lectures, Dramatic and Musical Compositions
  • Robert Maugham
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    04 March 2010
    First published in:
    1828
  • Originally published in 1828, Robert Maugham's Treatise on the Laws of Literary Property was the first comprehensive examination of copyright laws in Britain. Maugham was writing at a time when the rights of the 'scholar' and the 'artist' were under great debate, themes paralleled in the increasingly 'digital' literary climate of the 21st century. Dedicated to protecting the rights of the author, Maugham branded the introduction of copyright laws, and the debate surrounding the subject, a 'great literary controversy'. His Treatise served to inspire changes in copyright law and provides an accessible, detailed, and thorough discussion of the statutes that governed British authors and publishers in the nineteenth century.

Lives of the Founders of the British Museum
  • With Notices of its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570–1870
  • Volume 2
  • Edward Edwards
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    17 June 2010
    First published in:
    1870
  • This two-volume work covers the period 1570–1870, and is one of several written on book collections by Edward Edwards (1812–1886), whose three-volume Memoirs of Libraries is also reissued in this series. Volume 2 looks at some of the early donors of books to the Museum. A chapter is then devoted to the Royal Library of King George III. Finally, Edwards concentrates on the period 1829–1870, giving a general view of the growth of the British Museum under a series of chief librarians, including his own contemporary, Sir Anthony Panizzi. Later chapters look at the donors of items in the ever-growing collection of antiquities, and give an account of the Grenville Library of over 20,000 books, bequeathed to the Museum in 1846 by one of its Trustees.

Trinity College Library. The First 150 Years
  • The Sandars Lectures 1978–9
  • Philip Gaskell
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1980
  • Philip Gaskell (1926–2001) acknowledges in his Preface that 'one period in the history of one college library may not seem much of a subject for a book', but, as his 1980 study shows, Trinity College Library has a history well worth investigating. Gaskell, a former Librarian and Fellow of Trinity College, details how this library grew from small beginnings in the mid-sixteenth century into arguably the greatest of all Oxford and Cambridge college libraries. He links the growth of the library to the intellectual life of the college at that time, outlining the achievements of a number of eminent Trinity men in advancing England's spiritual, intellectual and scientific development: Cartwright, Whitgift, Coke, Bacon, Essex, George Herbert, Ray, Barrow and Newton. This is a fascinating insight into the early history and accumulation of a college library now outstandingly rich both in contents and in setting.

Memoirs of Libraries
  • Including a Handbook of Library Economy
  • Volume 3
  • Edward Edwards
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    20 May 2010
    First published in:
    1859
  • This monumental work, first published in 1859, covers the history of libraries from classical times to the mid-nineteenth century, in Britain, Europe and America. The author was influential in founding municipal libraries in nineteenth-century Britain and regarded access to good libraries as crucial to education and civilisation. Volume 1, divided by the author into five 'books', is reissued here in two parts. The first two books deal with classical and medieval libraries, examining English and European monastic libraries in depth. Book 3 describes the core collections of the British Museum and other major university, ecclesiastical and public libraries of Britain and Ireland. Book 4 discusses the principal libraries of America and Book 5 those of continental Europe, from France to Hungary and Russia. This final volume (in four 'books') sets out Edwards' views on all aspects of library management, from physical layout and classification to rules and regulations.

Memoirs of Libraries
  • Including a Handbook of Library Economy
  • Volume 1
  • Edward Edwards
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    20 May 2010
    First published in:
    1859
  • This monumental work, first published in 1859, covers the history of libraries from classical times to the mid-nineteenth century, in Britain, Europe and America. The author was influential in founding municipal libraries in nineteenth-century Britain and regarded access to good libraries as crucial to education and civilisation. Volume 1, divided by the author into five 'books', is reissued here in two parts. The first two books deal with classical and medieval libraries, examining English and European monastic libraries in depth. Book 3 describes the core collections of the British Museum and other major university, ecclesiastical and public libraries of Britain and Ireland. Book 4 discusses the principal libraries of America and Book 5 those of continental Europe, from France to Hungary and Russia. The final volume (in four 'books') sets out Edwards' views on all aspects of library management, from physical layout and classification to rules and regulations.

A History of the Old English Letter Foundries
  • With Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography
  • Talbot Baines Reed
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    20 May 2010
    First published in:
    1887
  • Talbot Baines Reed wrote in a period of transition when hot metal typesetting and offset printing were transforming the scale and scope of printing. In the previous 350 years, England had experienced civil war and started the Industrial Revolution. The dissemination of printed information and learning is inextricable to this history, and the art with which this was done is a quintessential part of English culture. Reed is distinctly aware of the great debt that his contemporaries had to the early typographers (notable among them William Caslon - considered the first great English typographer - and John Baskerville), and everywhere in his work is this shown in his meticulous and unstinting presentation of the fascinating details of their artistic exploration and expression. Modern readers will enjoy the technical and historical insight this work affords, and also find the style and presentation fresh and engaging.

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Latin Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library at Manchester
  • Volume 2, Plates
  • Montague Rhodes James
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1921
  • M. R. James (1862–1936), best known as a writer of chilling ghost stories, was an outstanding scholar of medieval literature and palaeography, who served both as Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and as Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum. His detailed descriptive catalogues of manuscripts owned by colleges, cathedrals and museums are still of value to scholars today. This two-volume catalogue, first published in 1921, was commissioned as the fourth in a series of guides to the collection of Oriental and Western manuscripts in the John Rylands Library. It describes 183 Latin rolls and codices dating from the sixth to the nineteenth century, their material, dimensions, structure, provenance, decoration and content. Volume 1 contains the text, and Volume 2 consists of 187 plates, illustrating a wide range of scripts, decorations and covers. James' book is still sought after and this reissue will be welcomed by librarians and researchers alike.

Page 6 of 9