BLACKSTONE, William.

Commentaries on the Laws of England. Birmingham, AL

Item #81366

BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Birmingham, AL; Gryphon Editions/The Legal Classics Library, 1983. Facsimile of the 1766 original. 4 vols. 4to. 473 + viii (supplement); 520 pp + xix (appendix); 455 pp + xxvii (appendix); 436 pp + v (appendix) + 98 pp. Orig. full leather, gilt-tooled compartments and raised spine bands, red and black morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, sewn black silk ribbon, a.e.g. Fine. Blackstone's great work on the laws of England follows those of Littleton, Bracton and Coke. "Until the Commentaries, the ordinary Englishman had viewed the law as a vast, unintelligible and unfriendly machine; nothing but trouble, even danger, was to be expected from contact with it. Blackstone's great achievement was to popularize the law and the traditions which had influenced its formation. ... The law might be as much an ass after Blackstone as before, but it was a familiar ass. Public interest in the law can be seen in the change in newspaper reports of cases from a haphazard selection of the spectacular to a detailed presentation of the legal issues. If the English constitution survived the troubles of the next century, it was because the law had gained a new popular respect, and this was due in part to the enormous success of Blackstone's work." Printing and the Mind of Man, 212.

Price: $150.00