Docket Book, Missouri, c 1880.
Thorough Records from a Nineteenth-Century Missouri Court [Manuscript]. [Docket Book]. [Missouri, c.1880]. 289 pp. Octavo (8" x 5-1/2"; 20.3 x 13.9 cm). Contemporary sheep, gilt fillets to boards, gilt-edged raised bands and gilt title to spine ("Record"), marbled edges. Light rubbing, a few scuffs and nicks, some soiling to boards, signature to rear board (of Charles B. Hobart), moderate rubbing to extremities with some wear to spine ends and corners, which are bumped, rear joint and front hinge cracked, rear hinge starting, front endleaf lacking, fragment of court calendar dated 1880 affixed to rear pastedown. Text in single elegant hand to approximately 250 pages, mostly in black ink with some entries in purple ink or pencil. Interior clean and bright. $650. * This incredibly detailed manuscript docket book offers a vibrant window into the legal and social fabric of late nineteenth-century Missouri. Written during a period of rapid post-Reconstruction growth and western expansion, the thorough entries capture the granular realities of local legal disputes. The cases span an impressive breadth of American jurisprudence, ranging from routine real estate transactions and debt collection to deeply personal domestic disputes-including a fascinating look at the lingering remnants of coverture laws via a case regarding a husband's liability for slander uttered by his wife. A rich resource for research into regional legal history, gender and the law, and late-nineteenth-century social history.
Price: $650.00
Book number 72569