Sandars Lectures Explained

The Sandars Readership in Bibliography is an annual lecture series given at Cambridge University. Instituted in 1895 at the behest of Samuel Sandars of Trinity College (1837–1894), ^[1] who left a £2000 bequest to the University, the series has continued to the present day.^[2] Together with the Panizzi Lectures at the British Library and the Lyell Lectures at Oxford University, it is considered one of the major British bibliographical lecture series.^[3]

Lectures

1890s

• 1895: Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. Greek, Latin and English handwriting.
• 1896: C. H. Middleton-Wake. The invention of printing.
• 1897: W. H. Stevenson. Anglo-Saxon Chancery.
• 1898: E. Gordon Duff. The printers, stationers and book-binders of Westminster and London in the 15th century.
• 1899: J. W. Clark. The care of books (to the end of the 18th century).

1900–1925

• 1900: F. G. Kenyon. The development of Greek writing, BC 300–AD 900.
• 1901: H. Y. Thompson. English and French illustrated MSS. of the 13th–15th centuries.
• 1902: M. R. James. Manuscripts in Cambridge.
• 1903: E. Gordon Duff. The printers, stationers and book-binders of London, 1500–1535.
• 1904: H. Y. Thompson. Illustrated MSS. of the 11th century.
• 1905: Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. The history of illumination and ornamentation of MSS.
• 1906: F. W. Maitland. [Did not lecture]
• 1907–1908: F. J. H. Jenkinson. Books printed at Cologne by U. Zell.
• 1909: F. Madan. The localisation and dating of MSS.
• 1910: W. M. Lindsay. Latin Abbreviations.
• 1911: E. Gordon Duff. English provincial printers, stationers and book-binders to 1557.
• 1912: A. E. Cowley. The Papyri of Elephantine.
• 1913: W. W. Greg. Some bibliographical and textual problems of the English Miracle-play Cycles.
• 1914: E. A. Loew. (1) Characteristics of the so-called National Scripts. (2) Punctuation and critical marks as aids in dating and placing MSS. (3) Graeco-Latin manuscripts. (4) The Codex Bezae and the Codex Laudianus.
• 1915: A. W. Pollard. The conditions of printing and publishing in Shakespeare’s day in their relation to his text.
• 1916–1920: [Lectures suspended]
• 1921: E. Wyndham Hulme. Statistical bibliography in relation to the growth of modern civilisation.
• 1922: W. C. Bolland. Readings on the Year Books.
• 1923: M. R. James. The pictorial illustration of the Old Testament from the 14th Century to the 16th.
• 1924: Emery Walker. Printing for book production.^[4]
• 1925: E. H. Minns. The influence of materials and instruments upon writing.

1926–1950

• 1926: A. J. K. Esdaile. Elements of the bibliography of English literature, materials and methods.
• 1927: G. D. Hobson. English leather bindings down to 1500.
• 1928: R. B. McKerrow. The relationship of English printed books to authors’ manuscripts in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• 1929: S. De Ricci. English collectors of books and MSS., 1550–1900, and their marks of ownership.
• 1930: J. V. Scholderer. The invention of printing: facts and theories.
• 1931: Stanley Morison. The English newspaper: some account of the physical development of the journals printed in London from 1622 down to the present day.
• 1932: J. Dover Wilson. The Hamlet texts, 1604 and 1623.
• 1933: Geoffrey Keynes. John Evelyn: a study in bibliography.
• 1934: E. G. Millar. Some aspects of the comparative study of illuminated MSS.
• 1935: Stephen Gaselee. Bibliography and the Classics.
• 1936: C. A. Gordon. Manuscript missals; the English uses.
• 1937: M. Sadleir. Bibliographical aspects of the Victorian novel.
• 1938: C. J. Sisson. The judicious marriage of Mr Hooker and the birth of ‘the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’.
• 1939: H. R. Creswick. Some recent work on early English printed books.
• 1940–1946: [Lectures suspended]
• 1947: John Carter Taste and technique in book collecting: a study of recent developments in Great Britain and the United States.
• 1948: F. Wormald. The Miniatures in the Gospels of St Augustine: Corpus Christi College MS. 286.
• 1949: J. B. Oldham. English blind-stamped bindings.
• 1950: H. Williams. The text of Gulliver’s Travels.

1951–1975

• 1951: H. S. Bennett. English books and readers 1475 to 1557; being a study in the history of the book trade from Caxton to the incorporation of the Stationers’ Company.
• 1952: J. C. T. Oates. The history of the collection of incunabula in the University Library.
• 1953: E. P. Goldschmidt. The first Cambridge press in its European setting.
• 1954: S. C. Roberts. The evolution of Cambridge publishing.
• 1955: N. R. Ker. Oxford libraries in the sixteenth century.
• 1956: Wilmarth S. Lewis. Horace Walpole’s Library.
• 1957: Fredson T. Bowers. Textual criticism and the literary critic.
• 1958: H. Graham Pollard. English market for printed books.
• 1959: R. W. Hunt. Manuscripts of the Latin classics in England in the Middle Ages.
• 1960: C. H. Roberts. The earliest manuscripts of the Church: style and significance.
• 1961: A. H. King. Some British collectors of music, 1600–1960.
• 1962: F. J. Norton. Printing in Spain 1500–1520.
• 1963: J. H. A. Sparrow. The inscription and the book.
• 1964: W. T. Stearn. Bibliography in the service of biology.
• 1965: J. C. T. Oates. Abraham Whelock (1593–1653): Orientalist, Anglo-Saxonist and University Librarian.
• 1966: S. Smith. The Darwin Collection in Cambridge University Library.
• 1967:Howard Millar Nixon. English bookbinding in the Restoration period.^[5]
• 1968: B. Dickins. Corpus Christi College, the Parker Library.
• 1969: A. N. L. Munby. Gothick into art: connoisseurship and medieval miniatures, 1750–1850.
• 1970: J. S. L. Gilmour. Some freethinkers and their writings.
• 1971: F. J. Stopp. Monsters and hieroglyphs: the broadsheet and emblem book in sixteenth century Germany.
• 1972–1973: M. A. Hoskin. Virtues and vices of scientific manuscripts.
• 1973–1974: J. S. G. Simmons. Russian printing from the beginnings to 1917: a view from the West.
• 1974–1975: A. R. A. Hobson Some book collectors, booksellers and binders in sixteenth century Italy.

1976–2000

• 1975–1976: D. F. Mackenzie. The London book trade in the later seventeenth century.
• 1976–1977: J. M. Wells. Two hundred years of American printing, 1776–1976.
• 1977–1978: D. F. Foxon. The Stamp Act of 1712.
• 1978–1979: J. P. Gaskell. Trinity College Library: the first 150 years. ^[6]
• 1979–1980: J. G. Dreyfus. British book typography 1889–1939.
• 1980–1981: W. Kirsop. Books for colonial readers — The nineteenth century Australian experience.
• 1981–1982: W. H. Bond. Thomas Hollis of Lincoln’s Inn: collector, designer, and patron.
• 1982–1983: Ruari McLean. Moxon to Morison: The growth of typography as a profession.
• 1983–1984: P. C. G. Isaac. William Bulmer, 1757–1830: ‘fine’ printer.
• 1984–1985: J. J. G. Alexander. Artists and the book in Padua, Venice and Rome in the second half of the fifteenth century.
• 1986–1987: Professor R. A. Leigh. Unsolved problems in the bibliography of J. J. Rousseau.
• 1987–1988: D. M. Owen. The medieval canon law: teaching, literature and transmission.
• 1988–1989: F. W. Ratcliffe. A pre-Lutheran German psalter: A case study of a fourteenth-century work.
• 1989–1990: R. I. Page. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his books.
• 1990–1991: D. S. Brewer. The fabulous history of Venus: Studies in the history of mythography from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century.
• 1991–1992: G. G. Watson. Lord Acton and his library.
• 1992–1993: Will Carter. Gutenberg’s legacy.
• 1993–1994: Bamber Gascoigne. From priceless perfection to cheap charm: stages in the development of colour printing.
• 1994–1995: D. J. Bruce. ‘The real Simon Pure’: The life and work of George Cruikshank.
• 1995–1996: J. Harley-Mason. The Age of Aquatint: a chapter in the history of English book illustration.
• 1995–1996: A. Derolez. Textualis formata.
• 1996–1997: G. Thomas Tanselle. Analytical bibliography: an historical introduction.
• 1997–1998: G. G. Barber. Bibliography with rococo roses: The 1755 La Fontaine Fables choisies and the arts of the book in eighteenth-century France.
• 1998–1999: P. Donlon. In Fairyland: Irish illustrators of children’s books.
• 1999–2000: Nicolas Barker. Type and type-founding in Britain 1485–1720.

2001–2025

• 2000–2001: D. J. McKitterick. Printing versus publishing: Cambridge University Press and Greater Britain 1873–1914.
• 2001–2002: C. Fahy. Paper in the sixteenth-century Italian printing industry.
• 2002–2003: M. Foot. Description, image and reality: aspects of bookbinding history.
• 2003–2004: Christopher de Hamel. "Sir Sydney Cockerell and Illuminated Manuscripts."
• 2004–2005: Paul Needham. Fifteenth-century printing: the work of the shops.
• 2005–2006: James H. Marrow. Word-diagram-picture: the shape of meaning in medieval books.
• 2006–2007: Sarah Tyacke. Conversations with maps.
• 2007–2008: Peter Kornicki. Having difficulty with Chinese? — The rise of the vernacular book in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
• 2008–2009: Michelle P. Brown. The book and the transformation of Britain, c. 550–1050.
• 2009–2010: Gordon Johnson. From printer to publisher: Cambridge University Press transformed, 1950 to 2010.
• 2010–2011: James Carley. From private hoard to public repository: archbishops John Whitgift and Richard Bancroft as founders of Lambeth Palace Library.
• 2011–2012: Michael Reeve. Printing the Latin Classics — Some episodes.
• 2012–2013: Jim Secord. Visions of science: books and readers at the dawn of the Victorian age.
• 2013–2014: Nigel Morgan. Samuel Sandars as collector of illuminated manuscripts.
• 2014–2015: Richard Beadle. Henry Bradshaw and the foundations of codicology.
• 2015–2016: Anthony Grafton. Writing and reading history in Renaissance England: some Cambridge examples.
• 2016–2017: Toshiyuki Takamiya. A cabinet of English treasures: Reflections on fifty years of book collecting.
• 2017–2018: Peter Wothers. Chemical attractions.
• 2018–2019: William Noel. The medieval manuscript and its digital image.
• 2019–2020: Isabelle de Conihout. French bookbindings and bibliophily, 16th–18th centuries.
• 2020–2021: Orietta Da Rold. Paper past and paper future.^[7]
• 2021–2022: Cristina Dondi. Incunabula in Cambridge: European heritage and global dissemination.^[8]
• 2022–2023: David Pearson. Cambridge Bookbindings, 1450–1700.^[9]

See also

• A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography
• E. A. Lowe Lectures
• Lyell Lectures
• McKenzie Lectures
• Panizzi Lectures

External links

• Sandars Readership in Bibliography
• "List of Sandars Readers and Lecture Subjects". Cambridge University Library. 2019.

Notes and References

1. McKitterick, David. 1983. The Sandars and Lyell Lectures: A Checklist with an Introduction. New York: Jonathan A. Hill.
2. Web site: Sandars Readership in Bibliography . Cambridge University Library . 2016 . 23 Dec 2016 .
3. Book: Bowman, J.H. . British Librarianship and Information Work 2001–2005 . 1 Oct 2012 . Ashgate . 978-1-4094-8506-3 . 157.
4. Walker, Emery, and Oak Knoll Press. 2019. Printing for Book Production: Emery Walker’s Three Lectures for the Sandars Readership in Bibliography : Delivered at Cambridge, November 6, 13, & 20, 1924. Edited by Richard Mathews and Joseph Rosenblum. First edition. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press.
5. "The Book as Artefact." The Book Collector 17 (no.2) Summer, 1968: 143-150.
6. Gaskell, Philip. 1980. Trinity College Library: The First 150 Years. Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press.
7. Web site: Cambridge University Libraries . Sandars Lectures 2020–21 . 18 Dec 2014 . 14 Oct 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211014083324/https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/sandars/sandars-lectures-2020-21 . 14 Oct 2021.
8. Web site: Cambridge University Libraries . List of Sandars Readers and lecture subjects . 2023 . 21 Nov 2023 .
9. Web site: Cambridge University Libraries . Sandars Lectures 2022–2023 . 2023 . 21 Nov 2023 .