A History of Cambridge University Press. Volume Three: New Worlds for Learning, 1873-1972 (review)

With this volume David McKitterick, Fellow and Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, completes his three-volume history of Cambridge University Press (CUP), begun by Printing and the Book Trade in Cambridge, 1534-1698 (1992) and Scholarship and Commerce, 1698-1872 (1998). With more sources, better business records, and living testimony, New Worlds for Learning is a conclusion that can be read by itself and admired for itself, a beautifully produced and eminently scholarly book.

McKitterick has now published the most comprehensive history of any university press in the world. Throughout the project he took pains to present the CUP within the context of Cambridge University and within the wider world of publishing, printing, and international education. Having done so much, he knows better than anyone else what remains to be done, and he invites scholars to examine in more depth the press's journals and the influence of its books. The final volume deserves high praises and a small complaint: A last opportunity was lost to include a bibliographic essay on prior histories of the CUP.

Approaching his subject from every angle that could add insight or perspective, McKitterick begins volume 3 with basic facts: costs for space, materials, transport, and labour; abrupt needs for new skills; effects of tariffs, taxes, and copyright law; competition with commercial publishers and (more important!) with Oxford University Press; bouts with depression, recession, and war; revolutionary changes in printing and paper; and the perpetually paper-thin profit margin of the academic book market. McKitterick is vigilant to the place of the press within the politics and ideals of British education. He pays due attention to designers, typographers, and printers and looks into business practices, good and bad.

The CUP is rightly proud of its seniority, but its prominence was reached only in the past 100 years, in a century of repeated upheavals in higher education and in book publishing. In 1873, 'For all its long history, Cambridge University Press was a pigmy among giants' (37). By 1972, 'the Press was no longer an embarrassment' (427). Rather, it ranked with the largest publishers in Britain and was obviously one of the world's largest and best university presses. McKitterick zeroes in on the decisions that made the difference and on the people who made the decisions.

The volume has its heroes. Lord Acton, who pushed the press to begin the Cambridge modern history series; Stanley Morison, Walter Lewis, Bruce Rogers, and John Dreyfus, who successively reminded Cambridge of the importance of design and fine printing; Ronald Mansfield, who successfully established Cambridge's office in New York; S.C. Roberts, who understood the need for popular science; and Geoffrey Cass, who turned around the press's dismal financial condition in the early 1970s. When Cass took over he found arrears equal to seven months' sales and an overdraft above £1,000,000. In two years he wiped out the deficit, chiefly by raising prices, lowering print runs, and phasing out staff. Volume 3 watches a fox in the chicken coop: Alexander Macmillan, who for decades used his prestige and his position as publisher for Cambridge University Press to divert authors to his own imprint, and who kept Cambridge's printers busy printing books for Macmillan. Between 1919 and 1966 Cambridge built the 'New Shakespeare'; Macmillan and Co. had already appropriated the series name 'Cambridge Shakespeare.'

McKitterick endorses the value of a Cambridge education for its press's leaders. R.W. David was a graduate of Corpus Christi whose passions for botany and the theatre 'proved of formidable use to the Press' (259). R.J.L. Kingsford studied English and Classics at Clare, collected books printed by John Baskerville, and in 1947 severed the CUP's irritating ties to Macmillan. Michael Black read English and modern languages at Jesus, became one of the press's most memorable editorial directors...