This section contains records relating to the main publications of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, namely Transactions, Proceedings (from 1975 Mathematical Proceedings), and Biological Reviews, together with some records relating to occasional publications. The records include the following: some copies of early volumes of the Transactions (1821-27); records of publications sold and donated; stock lists; prices; records relating to illustrations (including copper plate engravings, glass slides, copies of coloured plates etc); occasional publications of the Society; and the original manuscripts of a small number of articles read at meetings and / or submitted for publication by the Society.
The Transactions of the Society began in 1821. 23 volumes had been published when the series was terminated in 1928.
The Proceedings of the Society first appeared in 1844. Originally it contained all communications to the Society, either in abstract or in full, some briefly abstracted papers being reserved for full publication in the Transactions.
By about 1920 the Proceedings were almost wholly devoted to mathematics and physics, whereas the Transactions had become a more miscellaneous collection including work on biology. In 1923 a separate journal now known as the Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society was started, and the scope of Proceedings became more restricted. Biological Reviews appears to have brought renewed prosperity to the Society under the editorship of H Munro Fox.
By the mid-20th century Proceedings had come to contain only papers on pure and applied mathematics. As a result, it was renamed Mathematical Proceedings in 1975.