The First Cambridge Press in Its European Setting. The Sandars lectures in bibliography, 1953

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, first edition, 1955. Two-tone cloth, gilt cover device, 8vo, 27 cm,. x, 99 pp, ills, facs. From the blurb: "John Laer, or Lair, of Siegburg, commonly called John Siberch, set up a press at Cambridge in 1521, backed by the leading Cambridge humanists of the time. He printed ten books in the space of about a year, and then returned to the Continent. From the purely commercial point of view, or seen in isolation, it may seem to have been 'a freakish, somewhat unexplicable enterprise, foredoomed to prompt failure. Of the ten titles. . .the preponderant majority were of such a limited appeal that. . .Siberch's press could hardly prosper'. By considering this first Cambridge press in its European setting, and by relating the ten books printed to the literary and scholarly aspirations of the age, Mr Goldschmidt proves the venture to have been an expression of the wakening humanism of the times. Siberch's patrons were English champions of 'good letters' - in all possible senses of the words. Hence his equipment (he styled himself, and was, Primus utriusque linguae in Anglia impressor) and the uncommercial nature of his product. Mr Goldschmidt wrote of the venture with a kindly irony. He was a learned man himself, and shared some of the ideals of the period he described. It is appropriate that his last work should have described the virtual foundation of the Press of his own university. " Ill health prevented the lectures being delivered. Covers slightly fingersoiled, otherwise near Very Good in duststained and edgeworn dustwrapper with small tears. Laid in is a typescript note on the letterhead of the publisher: "Sent with Mr J.L. Vellekoop's compliments".