Charles Astor Bristed (1820-1874) was the favourite grandson of John Jacob Astor (the first American multi-millionaire, and the Astor of the Waldorf-Astoria). After gaining a degree at Yale, Bristed entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1840, graduating in 1845. An American in Victorian Cambridge is a richly detailed account of student life in the Cambridge of the 1840s. The rationale for the book, which is as appealing today as it was then, is that this is pre-eminently a book about an American student at an English university. The book belongs to a fascinating nineteenth-century trans-Atlantic publishing genre: travel accounts designed to describe British culture to Americans and vice-versa.

IllustrationsPhotograph of Charles Astor BristedForeword by Patrick LearyIntroduction by Christopher StrayBibliographyOriginal dedicationOriginal preface1. First Impressions of Cambridge [1840]2. Some Preliminaries, Rather Egotistical but Very Necessary [1835-9]3. Introduction to College Life4. The Cantab Language5. An American Student's First Impressions at Cambridge and on Cambridge6. Freshman Temptations and Experiences7. The Boat Race [1841]8. A Trinity Supper Party [1840]9. The May Examination [1841]10. The First Long Vacation [1841]11. The Second Year [1841-2]12. Third Year [1842-3]13. Private Tuition14. Long Vacation Amusements [1843]15. A Second Edition of Third Year [1843-4]16. The Scholarship Examination [1844]17. The Reading Party [1844]18. Sawdust Pudding with Ballad Sauce [1844]19. On the Razor's Edge [1844-5]20. How I Came To Take a Degree [1845]21. The Polloi and the Civil Law Classes22. The Classical Tripos [1845]23. A visit to Eton. English Public Schools24. Being Extinguished [1845]25. Reading for a Trinity Fellowship [1845]26. The study of Theology at Cambridge27. Recent Changes at Cambridge28. The Cambridge System of Education in its Intellectual Results29. Physical and Social Habits of Cambridge Men. Their Amusements, &c.30. On the State of Morals and Religion in Cambridge31. The Puseyite Disputes in Cambridge, and the Cambridge Camden Society32. Inferiority of our Colleges and Universities in Scholarship33. Supposed Counterbalancing Advantages of American Colleges34. The Advantages of Classical Studies, Particularly in Reference to the Youth of our Country35. What Can and Ought We To Do for our Colleges?Charles Astor Bristed 1820-1874: An annotated bibliographyIndex