The First American Treatise on Commercial Law

1. [Caines, George (1771-1825)]. An Enquiry Into the Law Merchant of the United States; Or, Lex Mercatoria Americana, on Several Heads of Commercial Importance. Dedicated by Permission to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. In Two Volumes. Vol. 1 [all published]. New York: Printed by Isaac Collins & Son, For Abraham and Arthur Stansbury, 1802. xxxviii, [2], 648; clxvii, [1] pp. Reprinted 2006 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
* Reprint of the sole edition. With an appendix of forms. As Horwitz points out in The Transformation of American Law, this is the first American treatise on commercial law (150). Surrency’s History of American Law Publishing notes that it was also the first to deal with admiralty law (441). It focused on shipping and maritime commerce, with substantial sections on insurance and bankruptcy. Reflecting the tension that existed between arbitrators and courts of law, Caines insisted that “in what appertains to trade, let it be constantly remembered, that custom alone is law” (220). Caines [1771-1825] was the official reporter of the New York Supreme Court. OCLC locates 58 copies of the original edition.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-679-6

ISBN-10: 1-58477-679-X  xxxviii, [2], 648, clxvii, [1] pp.  Cloth  November 2006  $150.

Philadelphia Lawyers

2. Martin, John Hill. Martin’s Bench and Bar of Philadelphia; Together With Other Lists of Persons Appointed to Administer the Laws in the City and County of Philadelphia, and the Province and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: R. Welsh & Co., 1883. xvi, [5]-326 pp. Reprinted 2006 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
* This reprint will be a welcome addition to bibliographies of Pennsylvania law. A mine of information, this book lists the holders of every public and private legal, appointed and elected office from the colonial period to 1883. More than a collection of lists, this book also contains histories of legal, governmental and political institutions and bibliographical essays about the Pennsylvania Reports and other publications. It even includes a great deal of miscellaneous information, such as a list of the portraits and busts belonging to the Law Association of Philadelphia.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-647-5

ISBN-10: 1-58477-647-1  xvi, [5]-326 pp.  Cloth  November 2006  $95.

 Law and Literature

3. Ruggle, George. Hawkins, John Sidney, Editor. Ignoramus, Comoedia; Scriptore Georgiop Ruggle, A.M. Aulae Clarensis, Apud Cantabrigienses, Olim Socio; Nunc Denuo in Lucem Edita cum Notis Historicis et Criticis; Quibus Insuper Praeponitur Vita Auctoris, et Subjicitur Glossarium Vocabula Forensia Dilucide Exponens: Accurante Johanne Sidneio Hawkins, Arm. London: Prostat Venalis Apud T. Payne et Filium, 1787. vii, cxxii, [2], 319, [1] pp. Illustrations. Reprinted 2006 by the Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
* Reprint of the first critical edition. With extensive notes in English, a life of Ruggle [1575-1622], commentary explaining the jokes and an extensive glossary of legal terms. Main text in Latin. Ruggles’ classic acerbic satire of the English bench and bar was written in Latin and first performed in 1615. Designed to ridicule the language of the common law and the dullness of lawyers, the play is based on events relating to a legal dispute between the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University and the mayor of Cambridge, Francis Brakin. As one would expect, it incensed the legal community. “The keenness of the satire created quite a sensation among the lawyers of those times, and even aroused the ire of Lord Coke.... The Comedy, however, was so highly relished for its wit satire, that no less than nine Latin and two English editions have been published. Hawkins’ is the best Latin edition, and Codrington’s the best English edition.”: 64 Critical Review 333 cited in Marvin, Legal Bibliography (1847) 622.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-675-8

ISBN-10: 1-58477-675-7  vii, cxxii, [2], 319, [1] pp.  Cloth  November 2006  $95.

“A Compendious Dictionary” With a New Introduction by Bryan A. Garner

4. Williams, Thomas Walter. A Compendious and Comprehensive Law Dictionary; Elucidating the Terms, and General Principles of Law and Equity. London: Gale and Fenner, 1816. Unpaginated [1022] pp. Reprinted 2006 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. With New Introduction by Bryan A. Garner.
* Reprint of the only edition. Quite uncommon, OCLC locates 12 copies worldwide of the original 1816 edition. One of several English dictionaries published in the early nineteenth century, Williams’ dictionary is notable for its physical size and broad scope. Williams noted that his aim was to include more words and shorter definitions by omitting the extraneous detail that distinguished the work of his predecessors (and, presumably, his competitors). Williams [1763-1833] was a barrister of the Inner Temple and was called to the bar, but he didn’t have success as a pleader. He was known instead for his writings. In addition to his dictionary, he wrote manuals justices of the peace, compiled abridgments and digests and edited an edition of William Sheppard’s The Precedent of Precedents.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-680-2

ISBN-10: 1-58477-680-3  Unpaginated  Cloth  November 2006  $125.

First Reprint of the Rare 1831 Edition

Available November 2006 with a new introduction by William E. Butler, John Edward

 Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law, and Mark W. Podvia, Assistant Law Librarian

and Archivist, Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University

Reed’s Pennsylvania Blackstone

In 1834 John Reed, President Judge of the Courts of Common Pleas of the Ninth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, founded Dickinson School of Law, the oldest law school in Pennsylvania. This eminent jurist probably conceived this work as a text for his students. Like Tucker’s Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia (1831-32), this work follows the arrangement of Books I-III of Blackstone’s Commentaries. Portions of Blackstone’s text, enclosed in quotation marks and stripped of their footnotes, alternate with original material on Pennsylvanian and, to some extent, federal law. (References, including case and statutory citations, are included in the text.) OCLC locates 24 copies worldwide of the original and only edition.

“Reed thus produces not a version of Blackstone’s Commentaries, but an original work of comparative legal scholarship in which the law and legal developments of a republican commonwealth are superimposed upon and injected into the intellectual legal bedrock from which they originated. This is no mean achievement, and the achievement is realized in a lucid style, elegant in its own way and more comprehensible for having departed from the Enlightenment prose in which Blackstone so excelled. Where Reed reproduces Blackstone’s text, he succeeds by context and in his own subsequent interjections in translating Blackstone’s Enlightenment intellect into the more prosaic but more comprehensible American vernacular.”

From the introduction by William E. Butler and Mark W. Podvia

5. Reed, John [1786-1850]. [Blackstone, Sir William [1723-1780]. Pennsylvania Blackstone; Being a Modification of the Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone, With Numerous Alterations and Additions, Designed to Present an Elementary Exposition of the Entire Laws of Pennsylvania. Carlisle: Printed by George Fleming, 1831. Three volumes. xvi, 508; xiv, 544; viii, 572 pp. With a new introduction by William E. Butler, John Edward Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law, and Mark W. Podvia, Assistant Law Librarian and Archivist, Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-711-3

ISBN-10: 1-58477-711-7  3 Vols.  Cloth  November 2006  $275.

Available for immediate shipment

A New Miscellany-at-Law

Yet Another Diversion for Lawyers and Others

by Sir Robert Megarry

Edited by Bryan A. Garner

6. Megarry, Sir Robert; Edited by Bryan A. Garner. A New Miscellany at Law. Yet Another Diversion for Lawyers and Others. Oxford: Hart Publishing and Clark, New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., December 2005. (We are the exclusive distributors in North and South America). 392 pp.
*Should horses in Charleston be required to wear diapers? Does the ‘hotchpot’ rule apply when dividing a testator’s 17 residuary elephants? May sexual intercourse be conducted on a “without prejudice” basis? These and many other questions are addressed in A New Miscellany-at-Law. Like the first two volumes, Miscellany-at-Law (1955) and A Second Miscellany-at-Law (1973), it describes strange and remarkable cases, wise and witty utterances from the bench, and striking court-room exchanges. A New Miscellany-at-Law also includes many other jewels, such as the touching Conveyancer’s Ode to His Beloved and “fustum funnidos tantaraboo” in Chancery. For the common law world its reach is global, with many riches from the USA. Scotland receives a fair share of attention as well. Although the book is primarily for lawyers, a glossary and explanatory footnotes enable non-lawyers to share in the humor and wisdom.
      The Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Megarry, LL.D, FBA, became a Chancery judge in 1967 and was the Vice-Chancellor of the Supreme Court when he retired in 1985. He was Reader in Equity in the Inns of Court, 1951-1967, a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Law Reform Committee, 1952-1973, and Chairman of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting, 1972-1987. He is a celebrated author of books on equity, land law, the Rent Acts, and the literature of the law. His first two Miscellanies were legal bestsellers.
      Bryan Garner teaches and publishes extensively on legal writing, usage, and drafting. He has written several acclaimed books on the subject, including The Elements of Legal Style and A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. He is also editor-in-chief of the recently published eighth edition of Black’s Law Dictionary. After serving as an associate editor of Texas Law Review, Garner clerked for Judge Thomas M. Reavley of the Fifth Circuit. For several years, he practiced law in a major firm, and then he began teaching — first at the University of Texas School of Law and now at Southern Methodist University School of Law. From 1992 to 1999, he served as drafting consultant to the U.S. Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure. The ABA Appellate Practice Journal has hailed him as “the preeminent expert in America on good legal writing.” In recognition of his contributions to judicial writing, he was named the 1994 recipient of the prestigious Henry C. Lind Award, bestowed periodically by the Association of Reporters of Judicial Decisions. He has received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Thomas M. Cooley School of Law in Michigan.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-631-4

ISBN-10: 1-58477-631-5  392 pp. Cloth with Dust Jacket  2005  $45.

The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. is the exclusive distributor in North and South America.