Cambridge University Library A History from the Beginnings to the Copyright Act of Queen Anne

Oates, J.C.T.

ISBN 10: 0521118336 / ISBN 13: 9780521118330

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge., 2009

About this Item

8vo. 510 pp. foredges a lttle grubby otherwise very good softcover copy in lightly shelfworn very good original card covers. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # 31246

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cambridge University Library A History from the Beginnings to the Copyright Act of Queen Anne
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Publication Date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521118336
• ISBN 13: 9780521118330
• Binding: Soft Cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Book Collecting, Maps, Printing, Caligraphy

About this title

Synopsis

Of all the departments in the University of Cambridge, the University Library is by far the oldest. Oates traces its evolution in its first three and a half centuries, from its hesitant beginnings to its designation as a place of copyright deposit in the legislation of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He pays special attention to benefactors, on whom the Library was almost entirely dependent during the Reformation, but also to its subsequent recovery and dramatic expansion in the seventeenth century. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts given by Archbishop Matthew Parker in 1574 and the sixth-century Codex Bezae, given in 1581, are among the university's most celebrated possessions; but the author devotes no less space to those who encouraged such gifts, to other collections (some exotic and some, such as Richard Holdsworth's library, enormous) and to the prolonged negotiations that frequently preceded their arrival at Cambridge. This is the first of a two-volume history of the Library. The second, by David McKitterick, deals with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Book Description

Oates traces Cambridge University Library's evolution in its first three and a half centuries, from its hesitant beginnings to its designation as a place of copyright deposit in the legislation of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.