Tracts Written by John Selden of the Inner-Temple, Esquire, The...
"The Pioneer of the Select Band of English Legal Historians" Selden, John [1584-1654]. Tracts Written by John Selden of the Inner-Temple, Esquire. The First Entituled, Jani Anglorum Facies Altera, Rendred into English, With Large Notes Thereupon, by Redman Westcot, Gent. The Second, England's Epinomis. The Third, Of the Original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions of Testaments. The Fourth, Of the Disposition or Administration of Intestates Goods. The Three Last Never Before Extant. London: Printed for Thomas Basset at the George in Fleet-Street, And Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard, 1683. [xxxvi], 131; [9], 39; [5], 24 pp. Copperplate engraved portrait frontispiece. 4 parts in 1 volume. The first preceded by general title page; tracts preceded by divisional title pages (the third and fourth by a shared title page). Folio (12-1/2" x 7-3/4"; 30.5 x 19.7 cm). Contemporary sheep, blind rules to boards, raised bands to spine. Scuffing to boards, which are beginning to separate but are still secure, chipping to spine ends, corners bumped and moderately worn, later armorial bookplate of Wriothesly Digby to front pastedown, . General title page printed in red and black. Light toning to interior, light foxing in a few places, mostly confined to margins, offsetting and a few creases to endleaves, "R:B" in early hand to front free endpaper, "Charles Cotes/ M. Temple 1719" in tiny hand to head of title page. $650. * First edition, one of two issues from 1683. Holdsworth regards Selden "as the first scientific historian of English law" and goes on to say that "his great intellectual qualities justify us in regarding him both as the pioneer of the select band of English legal historians, and one of the most eminent of its representatives." Tracts is one of his principal works as a legal historian. The first two tracts, Jani Anglorum and England's Epinomis, discuss the development of the common law and the English constitution through Magna Carta. This copy belonged to two eighteenth-century barristers. Like Charles Cotes [d. 1744], Wriothesly Digby [bef. 1697-bef. 1767] was a barrister of the Middle Temple. Cotes was admitted in 1706, Digby in 1716/7. Digby, from a notable Anglo-Irish family, was the son and grandson of lawyers. Honourable Society of the Middle Te.
Price: $650.00
Book number 84469