A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown: Or, A System of the Principal...
Hawkins's Classic Treatise on Criminal Law Hawkins, William [1673-1746]. A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown: Or, A System of the Principal Matters Relating to that Subject, Digested Under Their Proper Heads. [London]: Printed by E. and R. Nutt, and R. Gosling, 1739. Two volumes bound as one. [xvi], 266, [48]; [viii], [78] pp. Folio (13-3/4" x 9"). Recent three-quarter calf over speckled paper boards, raised bands and contemporary lettering piece to spine, endpapers renewed. Light toning to text, light soiling and some dampstaining to title page of Volume I, a one-inch square neatly removed from a leaf on Volume II. Early owner signatures, one of J.W. Webb, which is struck-through, to title page of Volume I, the other of Solomon Wright, to both title pages, brief annotations in Wright's hand and inkspots to a few leaves in each volume. Handsome. $600. * Third edition, the last edition in the author's lifetime. Considered one of the four major law books of the eighteenth century by Holdsworth, Pleas is the first comprehensive English treatise on criminal law. A seminal work in criminal procedure and jurisdiction, it is "deservedly of high authority and still cited. It was the starting-point of modern laborious treatises on the criminal law which are valuable as digests of the subject, but which have no advance on Hawkins plan or style" (Winfield). The Solomon Wright who owned our copy was probably the early Maryland judge who lived from 1717 to 1792. Holdsworth, History of English Law XII:415. Winfield, Chief Sources of English Legal History 326. English Short-Title Catalogue T107637.
Price: $600.00
Book number 65273