An Oxford treasure trove

‘What distinguishes Cambridge from Oxford,’ wrote A.A. Milne in 1939,

is that nobody who has been to Cambridge feels impelled to write about it… [whereas] every Oxonian has at least one book about Oxford inside him… Oxford men will say that this shows what a much more inspiring place Oxford is, and Cambridge men will say that it shows how much less quickly Oxford men grow up.

The hefty and brilliant tome that has escaped from inside Professor Brockliss is very grown up indeed and, as a history of the university, greater than all those that have come before. (The previous, eight-volume account that inspired this one has many fine qualities, but accessibility is not one of them.)

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Brockliss is a rare hybrid of blues dark and light, having spent his formative years in the Fens before atoning for this sin by serving 32 years as a history don at Magdalen.