Topic description and stories

When is a book not a book?

10 Oct 2016

The e-book has made continued inroads into the publishing world but the printed book has defied predictions of its death. Research by Professor John...

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From Shakespeare to Austen: King’s College celebrates the Thackeray Collection of rare books

18 Jun 2016

A generous award will allow King’s College to catalogue and conserve an important part of an outstanding collection of rare books given to the...

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The 8th Cambridge Festival of Ideas launches

19 Oct 2015

Cambridge Festival of Ideas 2015 launches today with over 250 events exploring arts, society and culture.

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The frontispiece of Ned Ward's Vulgus Brittanicus (1710)

On the eve of the Booker Prize: a sideways look at the literary puff

12 Oct 2015

A literary puff is the promotional blurb that appears on book jackets and publishers’ press releases. Dr Ross Wilson, Faculty of English, discusses...

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A plan of Mexico City, taken from the 16th-century Civitates orbis terrarum, the world’s first atlas to include city plans

A kingly gift: Royal Library goes on display in Cambridge

02 Oct 2015

An exhibition celebrating King George I’s gift of 30,000 books and manuscripts to Cambridge University Library - including the celebrated 8th-century...

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Illustration of Peter Rabbit from The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Bunnies in children’s books: from Alice in Wonderland to Peter Rabbit

30 Sep 2015

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, R is for...

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Estimated to be worth millions on the open market, the ‘Manual of Calligraphy and Painting’ was made in 1633 by the Ten Bamboo Studio in Nanjing.

Oracle bones and unseen beauty: wonders of priceless Chinese collection now online

22 Jul 2015

A banknote from 1380 that threatens decapitation, a set of 17th-century prints so delicate they had never been opened, and 3000-year-old ‘oracle...

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Image from the Boy's book of British battles

Waterloo: the first draft of history

30 Apr 2015

A letter written from the body-strewn battlefield at Waterloo, an invasion map of the UK, and a book from Napoleon’s personal library in exile will...

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Getting up close and personal with print

22 Oct 2014

A copy of the first western printed book, the prayer book of Henry VIII’s last wife and an unpublished poem by Carol Ann Duffy go on display in a...

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Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) and the books that made the father of anatomy

17 Jul 2014

Born 500 years ago, Andreas Vesalius has iconic status in the history of science. Cambridge University Library holds several copies of the remarkable...

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Men and books: narratives of desire

28 Jun 2014

Our choice of books says a lot about us – and our relationships with books as objects can be complex. At a conference taking place today (28 June...

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Literature of the Liberation: Cambridge exhibition a world first

06 May 2014

Seventy years after Hitler’s soldiers were driven from Paris, Cambridge University Library is staging the first-ever exhibition to examine the...

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