Cambridge Library Collection

Accounts of seven notable nineteenth-century trials, originally published in 1873 as case studies for the benefit of the legal profession.

First published in 1896, this work by Agnes Bensley (d. 1900), wife of the Orientalist and biblical scholar Robert Bensly (1831–93), describes the journey undertaken by a party of scholars to St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1893. In the previous year, sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson had discovered the Sinai Palimpsest, the earliest-known Syriac version of the Gospels. The purpose of the Bensly's mission was to aid them in transcribing and deciphering the Palimpsest. Beginning with the party's arrival in Cairo, the book describes the preparation for the trip, their journey across the desert, and life in the monastery. However, relations between the members of the party deteriorated; Gibson and Lewis wrote their own accounts of the expedition (also available in this series), and Mrs Bensly's narrative is defensive of the role of her husband, who died days after their return to England.

Born in Cornwall, John Davy (1790–1868) physiologist and anatomist, and the younger brother of the distinguished chemist Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829), was one of the most prolific medical experts of his day. After taking a medical degree from Edinburgh in 1814 he became an army surgeon. He later became a hospital inspector and spent time living in overseas territories including India, Sri Lanka, and Barbados. First published in 1862, Davy's book discusses the prominence of fever, dysentery, cholera, liver disease, pneumonia, and other diseases common to the army, estimating that 45% of deaths in the British army serving abroad were caused by disease rather than by conflict. Davy also records his observations on putrefaction of bodies, particularly the vital organs, emphasising the need to determine the normal condition of human organs so that abnormal, diseased organs can be easily identified.

An Irish-born gardener and writer, William Robinson (1838–1935) travelled widely to study gardens and gardening in Europe and America. He founded a weekly illustrated periodical, The Garden, in 1871, which he owned until 1919, and published numerous books on different aspects of horticulture. His most famous book, The English Flower Garden (also reprinted in this series), was published in 1883, and fifteen editions were issued in his lifetime. The Wild Garden, published in 1870, attacks contemporary fashions in public parks and private gardens, which involved showy masses of colour in labour-intensive summer bedding, using mostly subtropical and exotic species. He calls for a return to native species, found in traditional English gardens, pointing out that these are more economical than short-lived annuals, and that there is much greater variety available to the garden designer. He suggests plants more suitable for the English climate, and exotics more capable of naturalisation.

After Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat at Waterloo (1815), the British government exiled him to the island of St Helena, where he forged a friendship with Betsy Balcombe (later Abell, 1802–71), the thirteen-year-old daughter of the government official in whose premises he stayed while Longwood House was being prepared as his residence. In these vivid memoirs, first published in 1844, Abell recalls her time spent with Napoleon, painting a portrait of a humorous and boyish character, of whom she was initially afraid, but then came to view as a friend and companion. Recounting his arrival, his opinions on music, wine and religion, his thoughts on his surrender and his battle tactics, his way of life, and his departure for his permanent incarceration at Longwood, Abell's recollections, which offer an unusual view of one of the most significant figures of modern history, have since inspired many documentaries, dramas and children's stories.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Volume 86, published in 1893, contains a translation of the journal of Christopher Columbus during his first voyage, together with documents relating to the subsequent voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot and Gaspar Corte Real. Cabot was commissioned by Henry VII to explore in English interests. Less well known to most readers, Corte Real was a Portuguese who was sent by King Manuel I to look for a passage to Asia but seems to have reached only Greenland and north-east Canada before being lost.

The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte is a condensed English version of the French philosopher's controversial work, freely translated by Harriet Martineau and published in two volumes in 1853. Martineau's abridged and more easily digestible version of Comte's work was intended to be readily accessible to a wide general readership, particularly those she felt to be morally and intellectually adrift, and Comte's philosophy indeed attracted a significant following in Britain in the later nineteenth century. Comte's 'doctrine' promoted personal and public ethics and social cohesion based no longer on metaphysics but on strict scientific method, and anticipated twentieth-century logical positivism and secular humanism. The second volume of this translation is devoted entirely to Comte's new science of 'social physics' and human progress, and outlines his theories about society and its development through various phases - theological, humanistic and finally scientific.

A robust defence of the theory of evolution published in 1889 by its co-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace.

This 1825 translation was published as part of a project to introduce the culture of silkworms into Britain.

A 1779 account of the archipelago between Malaysia and New Guinea, its inhabitants, and colonial rivalries over the spice trade.

In this 1889 work, an educationalist looks back, offering to the young 'the results of her life's thought and experience'.

This 1912 work discusses the significance of the 'Pyramid Texts' to the understanding of Egyptian religious thought.

This 1900 work remains of relevance to anyone interested in the everyday lives of ordinary people in an ancient society.

This 1895 book, designed for classical students, brought to Britain the ideas of the German Neogrammarians on Indo-European comparative philology.

This 1921 narrative begins in the prehistoric period and continues through the Christian era down to the nineteenth century.

A two-volume account, published in 1829, of the sensational discovery of two French ships wrecked in the Pacific in 1788.

A two-volume account, published in 1829, of the sensational discovery of two French ships wrecked in the Pacific in 1788.

This highly illustrated 1887 book offers a particular focus on the Celtic crosses of Ireland, and their sculptural symbolism.

John Rhys (1840–1915), the son of a Welsh farmer, studied at Oxford and in Germany, and became the first professor of Celtic languages at Oxford in 1877. His research ranged across the fields of linguistics, history, archaeology, ethnology and religion, and his many publications were instrumental in establishing the field of Celtic studies. This two-volume work, published in 1901, had its beginnings in the late 1870s, when Rhys began collecting Welsh folk tales. His entertaining preface sheds light on folklore fieldwork and its difficulties, including fragmentary evidence, alteration of stories by those interviewed, and the hostility of the religious and educational establishment to 'superstition'. For each text, Rhys provides fascinating information about his sources, and an English translation. He analyses possible origins for the tales, in imagination and myth, and in early British history, and compares them with legends from elsewhere in the British Isles.

A 1930 collection of journal articles, originally published 1907-22, from a pioneer in the study of ancient Chinese astronomy.

A lively, illustrated three-volume account, published in translation in 1803, of experiences in Egypt, by a savant travelling with Napoleon's army.