The academic, university administrator and clergyman Henry Richards Luard (1825–91) graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1847. He became a fellow and lecturer for several years before his ordination. From 1860 to 1887 he served as vicar of Great St Mary's, and from 1862 until his death he acted as registrary of the university, an increasingly important role during a period of rapid expansion. In addition to these duties, Luard made significant contributions to scholarship. As well as writing for the Dictionary of National Biography and editing the work of the classicist Richard Porson, he prepared for the Rolls Series a number of volumes of important medieval texts (which are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). Following his death, the sale of his considerable private library in 1891 took four days, comprising 1,366 lots. This catalogue reveals the sheer breadth of interests for which Victorian scholars of his ilk were noted.
