Cambridge University Press turned down the Oxford English Dictionary
In the Victorian era, lexicographer James Murray pitched Cambridge University Press a vast new dictionary. The press said no, so he took it to Oxford, where it became the Oxford English Dictionary. It was a rare miss for the world's oldest university press, holder of a royal charter since 1534.
Henry VIII granted the University of Cambridge letters patent to print in 1534, making it one of England's two privileged presses alongside Oxford. Actual printing began only in 1584, when the first University Printer, Thomas Thomas, set up shop and produced a religious book called Two Treatises of the Lord His Holie Supper. The first Cambridge Bible followed in 1591, a folio King James Bible in 1629, and John Baskerville's 1763 edition of that Bible is considered his masterpiece.
Over the centuries it has printed Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking, and it has published more than 170 Nobel laureates, the first in 1895. Journals began in 1893 with the Journal of Physiology; the Journal of Fluid Mechanics arrived in 1956. The press helped pioneer stereotype printing early in the 1800s, allowing repeated print runs from a single typesetting, and switched to steam presses by the 1850s.
Its buildings trace its growth. The Pitt Building on Trumpington Street, designed by Edward Blore, was finished in 1833 and still hosts conferences. The first overseas branch opened in New York in 1949, and English language teaching publishing began in 1975. Buying the Bible publisher Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1989 brought the ancient title of royal printer, and in 1992 it opened a bookshop at 1 Trinity Street, the oldest known bookshop site in Britain, where books have been sold since 1581.
In 2012 it sold its printing works and began relying on outside printers worldwide. A 2019 format called Cambridge Elements publishes works too long for a journal article but too short for a book within 12 weeks. The press merged with Cambridge Assessment in 2021, yet still keeps a separate identity, with more than 50,000 titles and over 420 journals to its name.
Source: Cambridge University Press
