A Collection of all the Statutes, From the Beginning of Magna Carta...
One of the Great Landmarks of Sixteenth-Century English Legal Literature [Rastell, William (1508-1565), Compiler]. A Collection of all the Statutes, From the Beginning of Magna Carta, Unto this Present Yere of Our Lord God. 1574. [London]: In Aedibus Richardi Tottelli, 1574. [viii], 689 [i.e. 687] ff. Main text in parallel columns. Folio (9-1/2" x 6-1/4"). Contemporary calf, blind frames with corner fleurons, large blind central arabesques and fragments of thong ties to boards, raised bands, blind fillets and later paper hand-lettered title label to spine. Light scratches, minor scuffs and worming to boards, moderate rubbing to extremities, light chipping to head of spine, corners bumped and worn, some soiling and edgewear to endleaves, crack in text block between front endleaf and title page. Moderate toning to interior, worming and faint dampstaining to margins in a few places, spark burns to a few leaves, early owner signatures (of William Ballard, one dated 1593) and annotations to endleaves, title page and a few passages of the text. $3,000. * One of the great landmarks of sixteenth-century English legal literature, Rastell's topically digested "great collection of statutes from Magna Carta to his own day" was first published in 1557. It supplanted all previous compilations. Holdsworth notes the reasons for its success: "It is partly of the nature of an edition of the statutes at large, as the enacting parts of the public statutes in force are printed nearly word for word, and in their original language. But it is more of the nature of an abridgment.... The book was frequently republished and brought up to date in successive editions and in 1579 the Latin and French Statutes were translated." The annotations to the front endleaves are carefully copied statutes from the 30-33rd regnal years of Queen Elizabeth. Holdsworth, A History of English Law IV:311-312. English Short-Title Catalogue S101087. Beale, Bibliography of Early English Law Books S64.
Price: $3,000.00
Book number 74459