A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 2, Scholarship and Commerce, 1698–1872

The second volume of the history of Cambridge University Press covering the 1690s to 1872.

David McKitterick (Author)

9780521308021, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 1998

535 pages, 33 b/w illus.
25.5 x 18.2 x 4 cm, 1.575 kg

'Not for nothing is Cambridge now regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent academic publishers. An advantage of the kind of long view taken here is an ability to convey a sense of the way in which such an imprint attains, over generations, the level of recognition that makes it what it is today. … Academic editors everywhere should read this volume. … At a moment when there appears to be increasing anxiety in certain quarters about the commercialization of academic publishing, this book comes as a timely reminder that it was ever thus.' The Times Literary Supplement

This second volume of the history of Cambridge University Press deals with a period of fundamental changes in printing, publishing, and bookselling. The purpose of this book is not only to chronicle the history of the Press, but also to set it in this context of change: to examine how the forces of commerce collided with the hopes or demands of scholarship and education, and how, in the end, one was made to exploit the other. The volume opens with the new arrangements made by the University for printing in Cambridge in the 1690s, and closes on the eve of the opening of new premises in London. In the first years, the leading figure was Richard Bentley, whose controversial part in the activities of the Press was critical to its fortunes. As always, the success of the Press depended on London and the London book trade. This book explores the changing nature of this relationship, and the extent to which the University Press also became an international publisher.

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Note on currency
1. A world for books
2. Changes to books and the book trade
3. Founding a new press
4. Crownfield, authors and the book trade
5. Crownfield's later years
6. The mid eighteenth-century printing house
7. Booksellers and authors
8. Bentham and Bibles
9. Baskerville and Bentham
10. An age of ferment
11. John Archdeacon
12. John Burges
13. Richard Watts and the beginning of stereotyping
14. Hellenism and John Smith
15. John Smith
16. John Parker: London publisher and Cambridge printer
17. Enterprise, authors and learning
18. Partnership
19. Macmillan
20. Opening in London
Appendix
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Publishing industry & book trade [KNTP]