Cambridge University Library - Special Collections

Special Collections

As part of its collection of more than 8 000 000 volumes, the library contains a wealth of printed and manuscript material from earlier times. This includes:

• A copy of the Gutenberg Bible from 1455, the earliest European example of a book produced using moveable type.
• Library of Lord Acton, Catholic historian and Regius Professor of Modern History in 1885–1902. The extensive library (around 60 000 volumes) collected by Lord Acton for research was bequeathed to the University Library on his death. The collection contains books from the 15th to 19th centuries, with emphasis on European history and church history. Many of the books contain annotations in Lord Acton's own hand.
• An archive of Charles Darwin's correspondence and books from his working library (including copies of his own works).
• The Hanson collection, containing important books on navigation and shipbuilding, as well as maritime atlases, some dating from the 16th century.
• The Bradshaw collection, containing more than 14 000 books relating to Ireland, printed in Ireland, or written by Irish authors. This is one of the most important collections of its kind in the world. The collection was formed by Henry Bradshaw, d. 1886. At present, the emphasis is on books printed in Ireland before 1850.
• The library of the typographer Stanley Morison, who had close links with Cambridge University Press.
• "The Royal Library", an important collection of more than 30 000 books assembled by John Moore (1646–1714), Bishop of Ely. The collection was bequeathed to the University Library by George I in 1715, hence the name.
• The library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, containing books, periodicals, pamphlets, photographs and manuscripts relating to the British Empire and the Commonwealth.
• The Bible Society library and the library of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK).
• The Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, a store of 140 000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments, mainly in Hebrew and Arabic, from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo.
• Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, an important codex of the New Testament dating from the fifth century, written both in Greek and Latin. The Greek text is unique, with many interpolations found nowhere else. It was given to the University of Cambridge by the Protestant scholar Theodore Beza, friend and successor of Calvin; hence the name.
• The Cambridge Songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia), a collection of Goliardic medieval Latin poems, preserved on ten leaves of the "Codex Cantabrigiensis".
• E.G. Browne's collection of around 480 codices in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.
• Several composer archives: William Alwyn, Arthur Bliss, Roberto Gerhard, Peter Tranchell.
• Papers of Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin, Ernest Rutherford, George Gabriel Stokes, Joseph Needham, G. E. Moore and Siegfried Sassoon, among others.
• Archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
• Material and archives of the University of Cambridge, from probates and graces to records of various student societies.
• Around 1.5 million maps.