1576 Tottel Edition of Magna Carta with Contemporary Annotations

* Fourth edition by Tottel. Text in Latin, English and Law-French. With two tables of statutes, one alphabetical. This edition contains one of the earlier printings of the Magna Charta. (The first was printed around 1508 by Richard Pynson.) It also includes the Charta de Foresta of Henry III, the Statutes of Merton and Marlebridge and additional information useful to “studentes of the lawe” and “practisers of the same.” A valuable window on English society in the sixteenth century, the statutes deal with women, wills, leases, forcible entry, “Fraudulent Deedes” and many other topics. In 1553 Tottel was granted an exclusive seven-year patent to print all “duly authorized books on the common law” (Dugdale). His patent was renewed several times over the following forty years. During that time he became one of the most important legal publishers of the sixteenth century. OCLC locates 24 copies of this imprint. Dugdale, Origines Juridicales 59-60. Beale, A Bibliography of Early English Law Books S19. See illustration below.

A Notable Civil-War General Attempts

to Build a Railroad in Mexico

* Text of the original concession, issued to Antonio D. Richards, Santiago Smith, and Jose Brennan, facing the altered concession issued to General W. S. Rosecrans. “In 1868 President Johnson appointed Rosecrans to be Minister to Mexico. Five months later, President Grant terminated the appointment. His brief diplomatic career convinced him that a prosperous Mexico would need peace, immigration, and railways, and he applied for a concession to build a narrow-gauge railway and telegraph line from Tampico to the Coast. The record of toil and travel, scheming, waiting on rich men and politicians, and of the final collapse of his Mexican dreams, forms a wearying chapter of the frustrating years from 1869 through 1873. Yet he was almost the first, and perhaps the most important, in a long line of Yankee railroad promoters in Mexico.”: Lamers, The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, U.S.A. No copies located on OCLC or KVK. One copy located in the Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico.

Notable Spanish Treatise on

Fideicommissum and Related Topics

* Third edition, and the last with additions by the author. This treatise on the Spanish law of fedeicommissum and its related topics: wills, primogeniture, inheritance and succession. First published in 1573, it proved to be a durable work; it went through five more editions and issues by 1749. Molina, a jurisconsult, was a counsellor to Phillip II. He is confused sometimes with the Jesuit theologian of the same name. KVK locates 8 copies of this edition, 37 of all editions. This edition not in the BMC. See illustration below.

Collected Legal Writings of Theodor Mommsen

* Published with its own title page and volume numbers, this is the first part of the collected edition of Mommsen’s writings (Gesammelte Schriften), which was published in eight volumes from 1905 to 1913. Mommsen was the preeminent Roman-law scholar of the nineteenth century. Influenced by the work of Savigny, he went on to become Professor of Civil Law at the universities of Leipzig and Zurich. He was also the author of the classic Romische Geschichte, which won the Nobel Prize. In addition to influential studies of Roman civil, criminal and constitutional law, he edited the standard edition of Justinian’s Digest. These volumes contain 98 essays on various aspects of Roman, Greek and ancient Egyptian law as well as editions of original sources. BMC 17:794.

1784 Edition of New Jersey Laws

* First edition. A fascinating compilation of Revolutionary-era acts. Tower, The Charlemagne Tower Collection of American Colonial Laws 564. Babbitt 325. See illustration below.

“Of Immense Utility”

* First edition. Nicolson was the Bishop of Carlisle and a keen antiquarian. First published between 1696 and 1724, his Library, which comprises volumes on England, Ireland and Scotland is an important work of antiquarian scholarship that was not superseded for many years. The Dictionary of National Biography notes that although “[Nicolson’s] haste in speech and in print led him into many mistakes, ...[the Library] was of immense utility.” (XIV:501). It is still a useful source, especially for legal historians. Though reissued as a set in 1736, these volumes, despite their similar titles and format, were originally issued as independent works. Robert Maxtone Graham was a notable Scottish book collector. Sweet & Maxwell 5:4 (38).

The North Carolina

Constitutional Convention of 1835

* The amendments that resulted from the 1835 convention expanded suffrage for white males and eliminated the voting rights of free blacks and Indians. (Remarkably, the article that disenfranchised these groups passed with only one vote.) Other provisions reorganized the legislature, equalized the poll tax and replaced the word “Protestant” in the constitution with “Christian.” Another significant change tied representation in the lower house of the General Assembly to the Federal census. This led to a dramatic increase in western representation. (The Senate was not affected; it continued to be dominated by easterners.) Babbitt 388.

1575 Studies of Roman Criminal Law

87. [Novellus, Jacobus]. Tractatus Criminalis D. Iacobi Nouelli Utr. Iur. Doct.: Utilis ac Necessarius Tam Judicibus Maleficioru, Quam Cancellariis Terrae Firmae, ac Alijs Uersantibus in Palatio: Cum Multis Additionibus Novissime in Lucem Datis, & Cum Summariis, ac Repertorio Admodum Opportuno, ac Locupletissimo. Venice: Ex Officina Ionnis Baptistae Somaschi, 1575.

[Bound with]

Tractatus Singularis Defensionem Omnium Reorum, Contra Quascunque Accusationes & Inquisitiones pro Quibuscunq Criminibus Instruens: Tum ad Theoricam Iuris, tum ad Communem Omnium Tribunalium Universae Europae Stylum & Praxim Accommodatus. Venice: Ex Officina Ionnis Baptistae Somaschi, 1575. [xvi], 239, [30]; [viii], 176, [24] pp. Octavo (4" x 6").

Two volumes bound as one, each with title page. Contemporary full vellum, worn with chipping to front board and spine. Dampstaining in some places. Minor worming to binding and a few leaves with negligible loss. Handsome woodcut initials, Somaschi centaur device to title pages. Minor worming and signature to Tractatus Criminalis title page, lower section repaired with no loss. A pleasant copy.  $850.

* Includes indexes. Later editions of studies concerned with the Roman system of criminal law by the important Venetian jurist. These were published originally in 1565 with the titles Practica et Theorica Causarum Criminalium and Tractatus Aureus Defensionem Omnium Reorum Adversus Quascunque Accusationes et Inquisitiones pro Quibuscunque Criminibus Docens. Not in Adams or the BMC. See illustration below.

Scarce 1677 Treatise on Leases and Tenancy

* First edition. With index and table. A compendious treatise on leases, tenancy contracts and related subjects in Roman and canon law. Scarce. Not in Brunet or Graesse. BMC 19:185.

English Pamphlets on Napoleon,

Legal Matters and Other Subjects

89. [Pamphlets]. Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. Fourth Edition. London: B. Fellowes, 1831. iv, [5-55] pp.

[Bound with]

Advice to a Young Reviewer, with a Specimen of the Art. London: M.A. Nattali, 1828. 24 pp.

[Bound with]

Benson, Christopher. The Israelites Asking a King. A Sermon Preached in the Temple Church, on Sunday, November 18th, 1832. London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1832. 32 pp.

[Bound with]

A Letter to the Inhabitants of Winchester, by Wm. Bingham Baring, Esq. on the Subject of His Conduct as a Magistrate in the Arrest of Mr. and Mrs. Deacle; with Copies of the Depositions and Affidavits Referred to Therein. London: Whittaker and Co., 1831. 55 pp.

Miller, John. On the Administration of Justice in the British Colonies in the East-Indies. London: Parbury, Allen, and Co., 1828. 150 pp. [Bound with]

Nassau, Wm., Senior. A Letter to Lord Howick, on a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor; Commutation of Tithes, and a Provision for the Irish Roman Catholic Clergy. Third Edition. London: John Murray, 1832. xvii, [3]-104 pp.

[Bound with]

Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury of the County of the City of Bristol by the Right Honorable Sir Nicolas Conyngham Tindal.... N.p.: n.p., 1832. 14 pp.

[Bound with]

Trial of Maj.-G. Sir Robert-Thomas Wilson, Captain J.H. Hutchinson, and M. Bruce, Esq.: Before the Court of Assizes, at Paris [April 22, 1816]. [Paris]: M. Nouzou, n.d. 112 pp.

Octavo (5" x 8"). Contemporary half-calf over marbled boards, raised bands. Rubbing with wear to corners, joints and board edges. Minor chipping to spine ends. Early owner signatures to front pastedown a first pages of a few pamphlets, brief annotations to On the Administration of Justice. Occasional light foxing, interior otherwise clean. A unique compilation.  $650.

Conductor Generalis Printed by Hugh Gaine

* With forms. A popular American legal manual issued by different printers and publishers based largely on Burn and other English sources. Part II (pp. 384-461) contains (with caption titles only): The Office and Duty of Sheriffs; The Office of a Gaoler, and Concerning Escapes; The Office and Duty of the Clerk of Assize and Clerk of the Peace; A Guide to Juries; An Abstract of Magna Charta; Of Maxims and General Rules, from Jacob’s Law Grammar; Of Actions and Remedies; Of Fictions, Intendments, and Presumptions. Cohen 7960.

Only Forty Copies Printed

* This book reprints three rare pamphlets on political and legal subjects. The first two were originally published in 1659, the third in 1684. Little is known about the author, though he may have been a barrister. According to the editor, “[t]he principal value of the ensuing fugitive pieces consists in the curious and valuable information, both legal and historical, which they contain; and which, although mixed up with much extraneous and tedious matter, will not, on that account, be unacceptable to the few individuals who take an interest in our national history.”: Preface [iii]. Robert Maxtone Graham was a notable Scottish book collector. OCLC locates 8 copies. According to Sweet & Maxwell, only 40 copies of this book were printed (5:93). See illustration below.

An Important Record of Early Senate Proceedings

* “William Plumer of New Hampshire merits the recognition of historical students along with those other pioneer diarists of the United States Senate, William Maclay of Pennsylvania and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, for Plumer’s Memorandum is an almost daily record of sessions in the Senate from October 17, 1903, when Congress convened in special session to consider the treaty and conventions with France respecting the purchase of Louisiana, until the close of his term in March 1807.”: Preface vii. Plumer was a distinguished New Hampshire Federalist. A senator from 1802 to 1807, he went on to serve two terms as governor, 1812-13, 1816-19. As governor, he played an important role in the Dartmouth College Case.

Inscribed by Pound

* First edition. The inscription reads: “With my best regards,/ Roscoe Pound/ October 17, 1927.” In his present volume Dr. Pound deals with a vast and complex subject-matter in that lucid and forceful manner familiar to the reader of his other writings... Though he treats of the past as well as of the present, he so breathes the spirit of social needs and human justice into the past that to us, who read, it is the living present.”: H.D. Hazeltine, Preface vii-viii.

Inscribed by Pound

* First edition. The inscription reads: “With my best regards/ Roscoe Pound/ October 17, 1927.””[Pound’s method] is that of brilliant generalization and of stimulating suggestions of parallelism drawn from legal history.”: Thomas W. Swan, Harvard Law Review 35:481-482.

First Treatise on Contracts Printed in America

* First American edition of the first treatise on the subject, based on the London edition, 1790, to which it is starred. Powell wrote several distinguished treatises that were used widely in England and America, including this one. Though mildly critical of its organization, Holdsworth considers it “an able book” that “is much more than a digest of cases” because “[i]n all cases the author tries, with considerable success, to state principles, and to illustrate them by cases.”: HEL XII:392. OCLC locates 29 copies of this edition. Cohen 3661.

Landmark Treatise on International Law

In Notably Fresh Vellum Bindings

* Later edition. In 1662 Samuel Pufendorf was appointed to the first modern professorship in natural law (at the University of Heidelberg). In 1670 he became professor of natural law at the University of Lund in Sweden. De Jure Naturae et Gentium is his principal work and a landmark in the history of natural and international law. First published in 1672, it proposed a thorough system of private, public, and international law based on natural law. Beginning with a consideration of fundamental legal ideas and their various divisions, Pufendorf proceeds to a discussion of the validity of customs, the doctrines of necessity and innate human reason. It is significant in part because it develops principles introduced by Grotius and Hobbes. Unlike Hobbes, Pufendorf argued that the peace, not war, was the state of nature, and he proposed that international law was not restricted to Christendom. BMC 20:1074. See illustration below.

With a Novel System for the Drafting of Forms

* Second edition. This popular manual was first published in 1794. An interesting feature is its “Short System of Conveyancing.” This is a collection of numbered texts that can be combined to create a variety of forms. According to Read’s explanation, “[e]ach of the following tables [i.e. texts] may be written on a separate card or piece of paper (leaving the proper blanks) which, when filled with a black lead pencil, may be so arranged, as to form any common conveyance. When copied, the traces of the pencil may be rubbed off with elastic gum, and the tables again be fit for use” (41). Read was a member of the Pennsylvania Bar who received his legal education in London. Cohen 8137.

Uncommon Treatise on Manorial Courts

* Second edition. This book is valuable because it is more a history of manorial criminal courts than a practical guide. It is especially useful as a guide to Leet jurisdiction in the thirteenth century. Despite its historical orientation, it provides a good sense of their status and rules of procedure at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Ritson, a member of Gray’s Inn and, according to Holdsworth, an “eccentric and pedantic antiquary and man of letters” was the author of several practical and historical works on legal subjects. Holdsworth XII:336-337. Sweet & Maxwell 1:405.

Legal Hagiography

* Only edition. This book chronicles the lives of 50 saintly canon lawyers, many of whom were popes, and Sir Thomas More. A didactic work, it uses biography to outline a set of qualities that aspiring lawyers should emulate. It is analogous to the role of hagiography in the promotion of ideal Christian behavior. KVK locates 6 copies, OCLC locates 1 (at Harvard Law School). Not in Adams. BMC 21:758. See illustration below.

1670 Thesis on Blasphemy

* Only edition. This is the text of a thesis on blasphemy in canon law and the law of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire defended on October 30, 1670 at the University of Leipzig. KVK locates 7 copies. 1 copy located in North America (at Harvard Law School). Verzeichnis der im Deutschen Sprachraum Erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts 12:161905V.

“The Pioneer of the Select

Band of English Historians”

* First edition. The first two tracts, Jani Anglorum (The Reverse or Back-Face of the English Janus) and England’s Epinomis, discuss the development of the common law and the English constitution through Magna Charta. Holdsworth regards Selden “as the first scientific historian of English law” and goes on to say that “his great intellectual qualities justify us in regarding him both as the pioneer of the select band of English legal historians, and one of the most eminent of its representatives.”: The Historians of Anglo-American Law 50-51. Sweet & Maxwell 1:42(33). See illustration below.

Classic English Equity Treatise

Based on Story and Spence

* Fifth edition. Originally published in 1845, this was the first student textbook on equity. It went through twenty editions, the final appearing in 1900. Based in part on Joseph Story’s Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence (first ed. 1836), it is a fascinating document of its reception in England. According to Smith, his manual is a “semi-original” work. “And although many passages are mere extracts, yet the selection of such passages as expressed, in the fewest words, the pith of whole sections, or that view of a subject which seemed to be the more correct, involved considerable deliberation and discrimination. And, taking the manual as a whole, there has been the same process of analysing, arranging, digesting, defining, distinguishing, deducing, qualifying, and commenting, as in the generality of legal treatises....”: Preface viii-ix. Sweet & Maxwell 2:331.

A Controversial Scottish Political Writer

* Sir James Steuart was a controversial political writer who was forced to leave Scotland more than once to escape prosecution, and for a time practiced law in London under the name of Lawson. He returned to Scotland in 1679, and continued to be involved in matters of state. He wrote the duke of Argyll’s declaration of war in the rebellion of 1685, was accused of treason, and pardoned by the Prince of Orange. He went on to the appointment of Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1692. DNB XVIII: 1114. Sweet & Maxwell 5:117.

The First Legal Work Bearing Story’s Name

* First edition. This is both the first legal work bearing Story’s name and the first American book of entries of precedents. According to Marvin, the work’s “notes and references show that the author had made no ordinary attainments in the science of special pleading.” Story was Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a professor at Harvard Law School and the most respected and prolific legal writer of his time. Marvin 668. Cohen 9274.

“A Remarkable Historical Study” of Liability

* “It is a remarkable historical study of the ideas at the back of delictual and contractual liability, and, as a necessary part of that history, of the law of those actions by the working of which the principles of that liability were ascertained. It is exhaustive without being tedious; it is original and suggestive; and it is based on a thorough understanding of the vast number of decisions in which the law is contained. His account of contracts in general and of consideration, of bailment, and of negotiable instruments from the seventeenth century onwards, are particularly good.”: Holdsworth, The Historians of Anglo-American Law 105.

1696 Study By a Leading Saxon Jurist