A history of the University of Cambridge, : its colleges, halls, and public buildings. In two volumes.
William Combe (1742-1823).
Category
Books
Date
1815
Materials
Place of origin
London
Collection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 3049624.2
Summary
Full description
Among the most celebrated of the topographical publications with which Ackermann followed his ‘Microcosm of London’, published in 1808-10, was a trilogy of works on the English universities and public schools. The ‘History of the University of Cambridge’ was the second of these, appearing in 20 monthly parts from May 1814. The text of most of Ackermann's books was provided by William Combe (1741-1823) who, after a youth largely spent squandering his father's fortune, had embarked in the 1700s on a career as a writer, supporting himself by penning works in every genre, from satire to sermons. More or less permanently confined for debt within the rules of the King's Bench Prison from the early 1800s, Combe had effectively become Ackermann's house writer after authoring the final volume of ‘The Microcosm of London’. In this capacity he produced a steady stream of verse and prose for Ackermann's books and illustrated magazines, most famously the text for the three ‘Tours of Dr Syntax’, which were illustrated by Thomas Rowlandson. Ackermann's books were issued in relatively limited editions of around 1000, but the production of such copiously illustrated works called for an extensive network of artists and craftsmen as well as a workshop of some size. The drawings and engravings were produced on a commission basis, and the letterpress executed by a firm of printers with premises near to Ackermann's establishment in the Strand. Only the printing and colouring of the illustrations themselves was done in Ackermann's workshop. There the plates were printed, generally in two colours, blue for the sky and brown for buildings, with local colour added subsequently by hand. The labour and expense of all this was considerable; the total number of images printed for Ackermann's major topographical works up to the ‘History of the Colleges’ was no less than 372,000. It is not surprising that these books, then as now, were priced as luxury items; both Oxford and Cambridge sold for £16 when completed and bound in two volumes, and the so copies of each produced on ‘large paper’ (lavishly proportioned and with wider margins than other copies) sold for the then considerable sum of £27. Of these copies, R.V. Tooley wrote: ‘they gave a gloss, an incomparably rich glow absent from small-paper copies, fine as these are in tarty impressions; their text is also on thick Whatman paper and the portrait of the Duke of Gloucester on India paper’. It goes almost without saying that the Fairhaven copy is on large paper. Text adapted from ‘Treasures from Lord Fairhaven’s Library at Anglesey Abbey’, National Trust, 2013.
Bibliographic description
v. 2 ; 4to. One of fifty copies printed on large, thick paper. Shelved and uniform with Ackermann's 'A history of Oxford University' (1814). Provenance: Twentieth-century armorial bookplate large variant, signed Badeley 1930: Urban Huttleston Rogers Lord Fairhaven [i.e.: Urban Huttleston Broughton Rogers, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966)]. Binding: Twentieth-century full blue morocco; elaborate gilt border; gilt-stamped centrepiece on upper and lower boards: arms of the University of Cambridge; spine gilt, lettered direct: 'History of Cambridge University / Vol. II / Ackermann / 1815'; recessed cords; five false bands; gilt rolled board edges and turn-ins; gilt top edges; marbled endpapers. Binder's gilt stamp on front pastedown: 'C.J. Sawyer Ltd. 12 Grafton St. W.'.
Makers and roles
William Combe (1742-1823)., author Rudolph Ackermann (1764 - 1834) , publisher possibly Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853), author
References
Mark Purcell, William Hale and David Person, Treasures from Lord Fairhaven’s Library at Anglesey Abbey, Swindon: National Trust; London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2013., pp. 94-5