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I. The origin of the Cambridge Modern History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

G. N. Clark
G. N. Clark
Affiliation:
Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge
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Extract

It will soon be half a century since the Cambridge Modern History was planned: the first entry relating to it in the minutes of the Syndics of the University Press is dated 13 March 1896. It is forty-three years since the first volume was published, and throughout that time the history has held its own as one of the indispensable books. It was the parent of all the other Cambridge Histories, of which there are eight series down to the present time. No other modern general history on anything like the same scale has been written or even projected in the English language, and this is a testimony not only to its usefulness but also to the efficiency of those who produced it. The time from the publication of the first volume to that of the last, the Atlas, was only ten years; and perhaps only those who have been concerned in similar enterprises can tell what energy and competence that implies. There were 160 contributors. Some of them, though it seems not so many as twenty, are happily still living and working; but they would probably agree that the Cambridge Modern History, taken as a whole, is a monument of a stage in English historical studies which may now be regarded not unfairly as a past stage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , 1945 , pp. 57 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1945

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References

1 Mr S. C. Roberts, Secretary to the University Press, has kindly allowed me to make use of extracts from the minutes.

2 I take the number from Lally, F. E., As Lord Acton Says (1942), p. 172Google Scholar; but in the list of names which this writer gives as an Appendix, Sir Frederick Maurice appears as two persons.

3 A Study of History, 1 (1934), p. 4Google Scholar; see also pp. 46-7.

4 Chaytor, H. J., From Script to Print (1945), especially p. 123Google Scholar.

6 In a letter to R. L. Poole dated 23 October 1896. I have to thank Mr A. L. Poole for allowing me to use Lord Acton's letters to his father, extending from 1888 to 1898, which I understand he intends to present to the Cambridge University Library. Among the interesting facts revealed in these letters I should like to draw attention to one. A letter of 5 January 1895 shows that Poole and others had hoped that Acton would succeed Froude as Regius Professor of Modern History in Oxford.

6 To Poole, 30 October 1896.

7 To Poole, 5 November 1896.

8 Minutes of 13 March and 24 April 1896.

9 See the second Lord Acton's letter to The Times, 30 October 1906.Google Scholar The fullest general review of Acton's writings on these subjects is in two books by Noack, U., Geschichtswissenschaft und Wahrheit (1935)Google Scholar, and Katholizitdt und Geistesfreiheit (1936)Google Scholar, both nach den Schriften von,… Acton.

10 Extract from letter to Wright, R. T., Secretary to the Syndics, in The Cambridge Modern History, an Account of its Origin, Authorship and Production (1907), p. 6.Google Scholar This is referred to in footnotes below as ‘the pamphlet’.

11 Minute of 8 May.

12 Extract from letter of 21 May to Wright, in the pamphlet, p. 6.

13 Minute of 22 May.

14 Letter of 15 July to Wright, in the pamphlet, p. 7.

15 The longest available extract is in the pamphlet, pp. 8-16; the Syndics do not appear to have any copy of the full text.

16 Minute of 16 October.

17 Minute of 30 October.

18 Letter of 5 November.

19 Letter of 16 November to Creighton. The correspondence of Acton and Creighton is in the Cambridge University Library, Acton MSS. 6871. The Letter to Contributors is reprinted in Acton's Lectures on Modern History, ed. Figgis and Laurence (1906), pp. 315 ff.

20 Minute of 27 November.

21 12 February 1897.

22 To Poole, 5 November; to Creighton (Acton MSS. 6871), 20 November 1896.

23 Minutes of 4 and 18 June.

24 Minutes of 27 October 1899, 19 January 1900.

25 Minutes of 1 and 16 February, 2 and 16 March, 18 May 1900. Acton had unsuccessfully approached Mr Leathes in 1896: minute of 13 November.

26 Minutes of 19 April, 14 June, 19 July, 8 November 1901.