A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921

by S. C. Roberts

Hon^rd

S^r

these wates on you to beg the favour you will be so good as to stay three weeaks & then will wate on you, in that time will Do my indaver to See M^r James & if it is possable to bringe him to Some agreament I Rely upon your Goodness till that time & then Shall have an oppertuneyty to inform your worship of my case & will do wat is in my power to make you eassey as to the Deate is oing to the university

I am S^r your

Dutyful Sarvant

Mary Fenner

Only one book bearing the imprint of Mary Fenner (the sixth edition of Bentley's Boyle Lectures, 1735) has been preserved and her association with the university came to an end in 1738. In that year she relinquished her lease and John James agreed to pay £150 in settlement of the university's claim upon the ill-fated partnership.

The chief cause of the failure of the Press to fulfil the high hopes of 1696 appears, in Monk's words,

to have been the want of a permanent committee of management, a measure which, however obvious, was not adopted till many years afterwards. In the meantime, the receipt and disbursement of large sums of money, as well as the necessary negotiations with persons of business, were entrusted to the individuals holding the annual office of Vice-Chancellor, who in many cases possessed no previous acquaintance with the concern; a system which inevitably led to injurious and almost ruinous consequences.

This state of affairs is reflected in the preamble of the grace of 1737: