A collection of out-of-copyright and rare books from the Cambridge University Library and other world-class institutions that have been digitally scanned, made available online, and reprinted in paperback.
A collection of out-of-copyright and rare books from the Cambridge University Library and other world-class institutions that have been digitally scanned, made available online, and reprinted in paperback.
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Originally named Demetrio Papandriopulo and of Greek parentage, Giovanni D'Athanasi (1798–1854) became in 1815 the servant of Henry Salt (1780–1827), the traveller and antiquary who became British Consul in Egypt and a pioneer Egyptologist. (An account by J. J. Halls of Salt's life and career is also reissued in this series.) Between 1817 and 1827, D'Athanasi excavated on Salt's behalf at Thebes. Published in 1836, this book was intended to accompany the sale of the collection of antiquities amassed by Salt, in which D'Athanasi had a financial interest, but various delays meant that it came out after the main sale had taken place. As well as an often diverting account (in which many axes are ground) of Salt's activities at Giza, Thebes, Memphis and Abu Simbel, the book contains a complete catalogue of the collection, indicating which items were later acquired by the British Museum.
One of the most popular writers of his age, outsold only by Dickens, Edward George Bulwer Lytton (1803–73), first Baron Lytton, is notable for coining the phrases 'the great unwashed' and 'the pen is mightier than the sword', although his work is largely forgotten today. G. K. Chesterton's appraisal was that 'you could not have the Victorian Age without him'. Lytton requested that his son Edward Robert (1831–91), first Earl of Lytton, complete his autobiography. Complemented by letters and previously unpublished material - the better to flesh out the story of a prolific literary life - it appeared in two volumes in 1883. In his preface, Edward Robert writes that his main purpose is 'to illustrate my father's works by his life, and his life by his works'. Volume 2 completes the biographical narrative, including details of Lytton's later political life, correspondence with Disraeli and others, and work left unfinished.
Jane Franklin (1792–1875) became well known in the middle of the nineteenth century for her tireless campaign to discover the fate of the lost Arctic expedition led by her husband, Sir John Franklin (1786–1847). The editor of this volume, Willingham Franklin Rawnsley (1845–1927), was Sir John's great-nephew, with access to the family papers. The four sections of this work, first published in 1923, address Jane's life before her marriage in 1828; the period when her husband was posted to the Mediterranean; life in Tasmania, where Sir John served as governor; and Lady Franklin's quest to learn the fate of her husband's expedition in search of the North-West Passage. Given appropriate context, the extracts illuminate her interest in European travel, her activities in Tasmania - especially in education and the treatment of female convicts - and her movements over the globe after searches discovered evidence of her husband's demise.
French astronomer Camille Flammarion (1842–1925) won acclaim for bringing science to a general readership. His Astronomie populaire (1880) and its translation into English as Popular Astronomy (1894) are both reissued in this series. The present work, on the origins of the Earth and humankind, sold tens of thousands of copies. Flammarion's original purpose was to update Zimmermann's Le monde avant la création de l'homme, published a quarter of a century earlier. However, scientific understanding had progressed so much that he decided to rewrite the work completely. First published in 1886, it contains some 400 wood engravings depicting dramatic landscapes, dinosaurs, fossils and much more. Ranging from early chapters on the universe and solar system, through to later discussion of the emergence of humankind after aeons of evolution, this book will prove an absorbing read for those interested in a nineteenth-century perspective on the origins of life.
An eminent botanist and natural historian, George Simonds Boulger (1853–1922) wrote a number of books on plant life in the British Isles. First published in 1902, this manual explores the characteristics and uses of one of the most abundant and versatile natural materials. In the first part, Boulger outlines the general biological function and uses of wood. He also describes the classification of wood, and the durability of different timbers. The second part catalogues the types of wood that are used commercially. Boulger explains the distinguishing characteristics and uses of hundreds of different kinds of timber, which are listed alphabetically. Featuring 82 illustrations, the book also includes appendices explaining some of the terminology and science of wood, and a select bibliography. Boulger's work on economic botany, The Uses of Plants (1889), is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.
Accounts of the earliest exploration of the Arctic are scattered through many literatures. In writing this work, reissued here in the two-volume English translation of 1911, the celebrated Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) returned to many of the original sources. Calling on others to help him interpret texts in several languages, Nansen begins his account with the first mentions of the Arctic in Greek literature and ends with voyages of the sixteenth century. He notably questions some of the traditional history based on Norse sagas. Each volume contains lengthy quotations from little-known documents, making much valuable information accessible to non-specialists. Volume 1 begins in antiquity and, after presenting maps and legends of the Middle Ages, turns to the voyages of the Norsemen to Iceland and Greenland. The final part deals with the possible discovery of North America or Vinland.
By the late nineteenth century, charges imposed on Manchester companies for the use of Liverpool's docks and the connecting railway had created an atmosphere of resentment within the business community. The Manchester Ship Canal was to play a major part in the city's regeneration following the depression of the 1870s, but it took a lengthy battle for the scheme to gain the backing of Parliament and for construction to begin in 1887. In this two-volume work of 1907, Sir Bosdin Leech (1836–1912) traces the canal's conception, planning and construction. Volume 2 begins with the project's backers having finally raised the capital necessary to begin construction. The difficult process of building the canal is then detailed. The work includes a large amount of illustrative content, enhancing the light shed on the landscape and notable personalities of Manchester at that time.
This helpful guide for visitors appeared in 1862 to accompany London's International Exhibition of that year. Held in South Kensington from May to November, the Exhibition showcased the progress made in a diverse range of crafts, trades and industries since the Great Exhibition of 1851. Over 6 million visitors came to view the wares of more than 28,000 exhibitors from Britain, her empire and beyond. Intended as a guided tour, the present work points out the most interesting exhibits along the way, touching on mining, pharmaceuticals, machinery, musical instruments, textiles, ceramics, furniture, clothing and jewellery, among much else. Containing a ground plan of the exhibition space as well as many contemporary advertisements, this publication remains an instructive resource for social and economic historians. Also relating to the 1862 Exhibition, both the official and illustrated catalogues of the industrial department are reissued in this series.
Later known as Lady Eastlake, the writer Elizabeth Rigby (1809–93) travelled widely in her early years, and subsequently moved in the highest literary and artistic circles. After an illness in 1827 she was taken abroad to recover, and her encounters with European art led to her writing career. In 1849, she married the painter Charles Eastlake, who became the director of the National Gallery and president of the Royal Academy. Continuing to write, especially for the Quarterly Magazine, on literature and art, she spent part of each year touring galleries and private collections across Europe. This engaging two-volume work of 1895, edited by her nephew and full of shrewd judgements on art and on people, is compiled from her journals and letters. Volume 2, covering the period from 1854 to her death, concludes with a reminiscence by one of her closest friends, the illustrator and author Eleanor Vere Boyle.
In June 1875, Frederick George Innes-Lillingston (1849–1904) set out for the Arctic aboard Pandora, a steam yacht captained by the seasoned polar explorer Allen Young (1827–1915). In this, the first of two voyages north, Young sought to make the north-west passage. His lieutenant Innes-Lillingston published this short account in 1876. It follows the voyage through to Peel Strait, where Young was forced to turn back in the face of heavy ice. On the journey home, the Pandora picked up the dispatches of the expedition under George Nares that was attempting to reach the North Pole. Conveying both the thrill and difficulty of the endeavour, this narrative provides a highly readable account of seafaring in extreme conditions. Also reissued in this series are two related works by Young: Cruise of the Pandora (1876) and The Two Voyages of the Pandora (1879).
Famous for his metal prosthetic nose, and for being associated with 'unlucky' days in Scandinavian folklore, Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) made the most accurate naked-eye astronomical measurements of his day. Cataloguing more than 1,000 new stars, his stellar and planetary observations helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy. John Louis Emil Dreyer (1852–1926) was a fellow Dane, but he spent much of his working life in Ireland. When he was fourteen, he had read a book about Brahe and this inspired him to 'be an astronomer and nothing else'. First published in 1890, Dreyer's biography of his hero remained the definitive work for more than a century. He sets out to illuminate not simply the life of his subject, but also the lives and work of Brahe's contemporaries and the progress of science in the sixteenth century.
An eminent botanist and natural historian, George Simonds Boulger (1853–1922) wrote a number of books on plant life in the British Isles. He published this concise work in 1889. It opens with a brief survey of the progress made in economic botany over the years, particularly in the period 1837–87. Boulger then notes the commercial application of plants across many fields, notably food production, medicine, and the building trade. Common and botanical names are given, followed by succinct descriptions of each plant. Including both a general and synoptical index, this accessible resource can be read with profit alongside John Jackson's Commercial Botany of the Nineteenth Century (1890) and Boulger's Wood: A Manual of the Natural History and Industrial Applications of the Timbers of Commerce (1902), both of which are reissued in this series.
A Handbook Relating to the Legal Care and Treatment of the Insane in the Public and Private Asylums of Great Britain, Ireland, United States of America, and the Continent
A controversial psychiatrist, Lyttleton Stewart Forbes Winslow (1844–1913) grew up around the lunatic asylums run by his father, Forbes B. Winslow, who was a specialist in the treatment of mental illness, establishing also medical grounds for the plea of insanity in criminal defence. Lyttleton spent much of his own medical career attempting to show the courts that crime and alcoholism were linked to mental illness, though he later gained notoriety for his amateur detective work: he claimed to know the identity of Jack the Ripper. Published in 1874, this book examines, often through case descriptions, the legal framework within which the mentally ill were managed, and comparisons are made with the status quo elsewhere in the world. It is an enlightening but often disturbing insight into the institutional treatment of mental illness in the late nineteenth century.
Sir George Smart (1776–1867), conductor, composer, singing teacher and organist, was a central figure in nineteenth-century British musical life. He is best remembered as one of the founder members of the Philharmonic Society, for which he often conducted. Notably, in 1826 he presided over the first performance in England of Beethoven's ninth symphony. Smart was also much in demand as a conductor at the major English musical festivals and on royal occasions. These edited journal entries, first published in 1907, provide insightful accounts of concert life at the time, and they are particularly valuable for Smart's detailed observations - gathered during his extensive tour of 1825 - on musical practice in Europe, including conducting methods and performing speeds. The journal extracts end in 1845 with an account of Smart's visit to Bonn for the unveiling of Beethoven's statue.
This two-volume work, originally published in 1705 and now reissued in John Nichols' edition of 1818, was one of the earliest examples of autobiographical writing in English. John Dunton (1659–1732), a highly eccentric bookseller and publisher, was also responsible for one of the first periodicals in London, the Athenian Gazette, which invited its readers to submit questions on any topic, to be answered by the Athenian Society, a group of learned men (in fact, Dunton himself and some cronies). However, he was not a practical businessman, and the death of his wife and his own illness led to poverty, and to hack-work for others. The Life and Errors was followed by pamphlets attacking those whom he blamed for his misfortunes. The work gives a fascinating picture of authors and the book trade in Restoration London. Volume 1 contains Dunton's autobiography, preceded by a short biography by Nichols.
In 1816, architect and botanist Joseph Woods (1776–1864) embarked on a two-year journey through France, Switzerland, Italy and Greece, documenting interesting flora as well as buildings of note. This two-volume work first appeared in 1828. The account stands apart from other contemporary travelogues owing to the application of Woods' architectural insight. By critically assessing ancient and modern buildings for strengths and defects, Woods hoped to inform fellow architects as to how they might produce beautiful buildings through the study of different modes of construction and decoration. Accordingly, the text is accompanied by Woods' drawings of important buildings and architectural features. In Volume 2, he records his travels through Italy, Greece and Malta, and examines such notable locations as the Athenian Acropolis and the ruins of Pompeii.
Between 1900 and 1901, the Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862–1943) made the first of several significant trips through Central Asia. In 1903, he published this account of his journey from Calcutta to London via the deserts of Chinese Turkestan. The text is richly illustrated with photographs of locations on the route followed by Stein's party, as well as of the people they encountered and many of the artefacts they excavated in the vicinity of the ancient oasis town of Khotan. Stein intended his book to be accessible to non-specialists, and his descriptions of the many important archaeological discoveries, such as Sanskrit texts of Buddhist scriptures, are interspersed with compelling human details and anecdotes about traversing the challenging terrain of eastern Central Asia. The work of an indefatigable explorer, this book sheds light on the spread of Graeco-Buddhist culture along the Silk Route.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the goal of the North-West Passage had claimed the lives of many explorers, yet the disappearance of the expedition led by Sir John Franklin occasioned the greatest response. Naval officer Sherard Osborn (1822–75) took part in the search mission of 1850–1 under Horatio Thomas Austin. Osborn was appointed to command the Pioneer, one of two steam tenders on the voyage. This was the first time such vessels had been deployed in the punishing conditions of the Arctic. Such was their success in cutting through ice and navigating the treacherous waters that similar models were later adopted by the whaling fleet. The present work, first published in 1852, gives a compelling account of the hardships of the expedition, which was successful in its surveying work and confirmed that Franklin had not been lost in Baffin Bay.
The disappearance of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition of 1845 led to many rescue attempts, some by the British government, and some by private individuals. This short 1860 account of Franklin's life and of the search for him was written by the experienced naval officer Sherard Osborn (several of whose other works have been reissued in this series) with a view to inspiring the youth of Britain to follow the great explorer's example of duty and rectitude. Osborn (1822–75) had begun his naval career in the Far East, but was a pioneering commander of steam-powered ships, and his performance in the steam tender HMS Pioneer in the 1850 rescue expedition confirmed the efficiency of this new technology in icy waters. Decorated for his role in the Crimean War, and later active in railway and telegraph technology, he continued to take an interest in Arctic exploration, and in steamships, until his death.
After the success of his richly illustrated Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture (1833), which is also reissued in this series, the landscape gardener John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843) received a great deal of correspondence from interested readers. This prompted him and the Encyclopaedia's contributors to publish this supplement in 1842. Loudon and his colleagues had continued to study a range of rural buildings - from homes to farms and schools - in England and Scotland, while at the same time receiving architectural designs and detailed letters from North America and Australia. The supplement draws on this wealth of material to discuss developments in the use of building materials as well as innovations in design. The focus is on cottages, farms, pubs, schools and almshouses. Construction methods and furnishings are also discussed. As with the volume it supplements, this work contains a plethora of detailed illustrations.