Books in Cambridge Inventories: Volume 2, Catalogue

Book excerpt: These two volumes, published early in 1987 will now be made available for purchase, at a special price, as a Set. They list the contents of two hundred private libraries, as recorded in inventories presented for probate in the Vice-Chancellor's Court at the University of Cambridge between 1535 and 1760. Most of the books listed (as well as the maps and instruments, scientific and musical) reflect the flowering of the late English Renaissance as it affected all levels of the University community from academic potentates to the humblest student. The first volume presents the lists themselves, with brief biographical details of the books' owners, and appendices which include extracts from early wills; the second volume catalogues by author and title the books listed in Volume I, and is further supplied with an index, under broad subject-headings, of the authors represented. Dr. Leedham-Green has assembled one of the largest collections of private book-holdings ever published for this period in this country, comprising some 20,000 titles.