'This is an excellent book, wonderful value for money, well-illustrated, perfect for dipping into, interesting on every page, stimulating to thought and entertaining for idleness.' The Cambridge Review

• List of illustrations and sources; Foreword by H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh; Preface; Note on the texts; 1. The Beginnings: dreaming choniclers and sundry facts; 2. Benefactors and the growth of the 'little Commonwealth' of colleges; 3. Protestants - the New Learning, Elizabethans and Puritans; 4. The Civil War: the garrison town; 5. Restoration, refulgence and rebellion; 6 The Eighteenth Century: was reason sleeping?; 7. The Turning Century: giants in the groves; 8. Victoriana; 9. The Twentieth Century: a sunny world; 10. The Twentieth Century: wars, aftermaths and omens; 11. The modern University; Appendix 1. List of colleges, foundations and societies which have been given 'approved' status by the University since 1596; Appendix 2. Undergraduate numbers by subject, 1982; Acknowledgements; Index of writers and major characters.