It is 100 years since the publication of Keynes’ Economic
consequences of the peace, and in conjunction with the Faculty of Economics’
centenary conference held earlier in the week at King’s College, the Marshall
Library organised displays and a series of blog posts to illustrate the
significance of Keynes’ work.
The Marshall Library welcomed a record number of Open
Cambridge visitors, including artists, historians, architects, and economists,
and it was a delight to see visitors’ first impressions when entering the
library. Hidden behind the stark façade
of a brutalist building designed in the early 60’s by Sir Hugh Casson, the
Marshall Library is open plan, flooded with natural light, and features a
spiral staircase leading to the gallery.
View of the Marshall Library Reading Room showing the spiral staircase, designed by Sir Hugh Casson
The Keynes displays featured first editions of “The economic
consequences of the peace”, and Tardieu’s “The truth about the treaty” which
sought to justify the Treaty and counter the criticisms levelled at it by
Keynes. A letter from Charles Waldstein to Keynes was found within the pages of
the Marshall Library's copy of this book in which he declared Tardieu to be
'... such a swine' and encouraged Keynes to respond to him.
In addition, there was a display of Keynes’s correspondence
from 1919, including the exchanges between Maynard and his mother when he was
on the point of resigning his position as H.M. Treasury adviser at the Paris
Peace Conference in Versailles. His
mother shows her concern both for his welfare and his reputation.
Florence Ada Keynes, Maynard's mother
In the Mary Paley Room, which houses the Marshall
Library’s collection of rare books, we showed the original copies of The
Economist from December 1919, when both Marshall and Keynes were publishing
within a week of each other. At the age
of 77, Marshall published the two-volume “Industry and Trade”, and the
following week, there was the announcement of Keynes’s “Economic Consequences
of the Peace”, with the first review appearing on 27 December.
It was Alfred Marshall who encouraged Maynard to become an
economist, as he was impressed by Maynard’s work. After graduating with a first class degree,
Maynard stayed at King’s for a fourth year and started weekly supervisions with
Marshall, although he had not yet decided to become an economist. Maynard enjoyed the intellectual challenge of
studying economics with Marshall, and in turn Marshall considered Keynes’ essay
on comparative railway systems ‘a brilliant answer’. This praise then prompted Keynes to write to
Lytton Strachey, “I find economics increasingly satisfactory, and I think I am
rather good at it.”
Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf
We had anticipated interest in the Keynes exhibition, but it
is always intriguing to find out why visitors have specially selected your
library to visit as part of Open Cambridge.
It was while visiting the Mary Paley Room that one visitor started
enquiring about the basement which had been mentioned earlier in the tour. He was an artist who specialised in
photographing behind the scenes in libraries and museums and he wondered out
loud if it would be possible to visit the Marshall Library basement. No matter how carefully you plan an
exhibition, there will always be something else that visitors want to
explore.
