The Compleat Sollicitor, Performing His Duty, And Teaching His Client.
Notable for Its Insights into Seventeenth-Century Legal Practice [Booth, William, Attributed]. The Compleat Sollicitor, Performing His Duty: And Teaching his Clyent to Run Through and Manage His Own Business, As Well in His Majesties Superior Courts at Westminster: As in the Mayors Court, Court of Hustings, And Other Inferiour Courts, Both in the City of London, And Elswhere. Not Formerly Published. London: Printed by John Streater, James Flesher, and Henry Twyford, Assigns of Richard Atkins, And Edw. Atkins, Esquires, 1666. [xxiv], 550 pp. Octavo (5-1/2" x 3-1/2"). Contemporary sheep, rebacked in period-style calf, blind rules to boards, corners mended, blind fillets to spine, endpapers added. Moderate rubbing to boards and board edges, later armorial bookplate (Exeter Cathedral Library) to front pastedown. Moderate toning to interior, light browning and foxing to a few leaves, offsetting to margins of endleaves. $1,500. * First edition. Holdsworth considered this book one of the best of its kind and cited it for its insight into seventeenth-century legal practice. A book of "intensely practical character," it discusses the "process of the different courts, with instructions as to the manner and time of taking the various steps in an action, with the forms of pleading, with the modes of executing, with the fees payable at the different offices of the courts, with the forms of conveyances and other documents which clients would be likely to need." Later editions, titled The Compleat Solicitor (note spelling), were published in 1668 (twice), 1672 and 1683. No copies recorded at auction on Rare Book Hub. All editions are scarce. OCLC locates 7 copies of the first in North American law libraries (Columbia, Library of Congress, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, Yale). Holdsworth, A History of English Law VI:437. English Short-Title Catalogue R211660.
Price: $1,500.00
Book number 74563