An Essay on the Law of Bailments. First Edition. London, 1781.
"One of the Most Remarkable Books of All Time" Jones, Sir William [1746-1794]. An Essay on the Law of Bailments. London: Printed by J. Nichols; For Charles Dilly, 1781. [iv], 130, [2] pp. With a half-title, errata leaf at rear of text. Octavo (8" x 5"; 20.3 x 12.7 cm). Contemporary calf, blind fillets to boards, with original burgundy lettering piece and blind fillets to spine, blind tooling to board edges. Light rubbing and a few minor nicks and scuffs to boards, tiny stain near upper outside corner of front board, moderate rubbing to extremities, tiny chip to front joint, later armorial bookplate (of W.H.M. Hodder) to front pastedown. Light toning to interior, minor stains to a few leaves, faint offsetting to margins of endleaves. An attractive copy. $1,500. * First edition. This exceptional treatise on a fundamental aspect of commercial law was called "incomparable" by Joseph Story in his own book on the subject and "one of the most remarkable books of all time" by Holdsworth. It was also one of the first significant Anglo-American treatises to use principles derived from Roman and civil law sources. Our copy belonged to Colonel William Henry Moore Hodder [1791-1859]. A resident of Hoddersfield in County Cork, Ireland, he served as a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of the county and was the highest-ranking officer in the North Cork Riflemen, serving under Wellington. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 12:393. Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory (1850) 463-465. Dauchy [et al.], The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture: 150 Books that Made the Law in the Age of Printing 93. English Short-Title Catalogue T69325.
Price: $1,500.00
Book number 74487