The First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England...
The Foundation of Common Law: A First Edition of Coke on Littleton (PMM 126) Coke, Sir Edward [1552-1634]. The First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England. Or, A Commentarie upon Littleton, Not the Name of a Lawyer Onely, But of the Law It Selfe. London: Printed for the Societie of Stationers, 1628. [vii], 395, [1] ff. Lacking initial blank and folding table of consanguinity, text complete. Folio (10-1/2" x 7"; 26.5 x 17.5 cm). Contemporary speckled calf, raised bands and blind fillets to spine, blind tooling to board edges. Worn, front board detached, rubbing and wear to extremities, spine ends and board edges partially abraded, later armorial bookplate ("Hugh Lyle, Esq./ Coleraine") to front pastedown. Title printed within elaborate woodcut architectural border, woodcut headpieces and tail-pieces, text printed in one to three columns. Moderate toning to interior, occasional minor worming to margins (not affecting text), gradually diminishing and mostly unobtrusive faint dampstaining to upper portion of text block, light edgewear to several leaves with minor loss to a side-note on verso of f. 14, a few tiny holes to title page, which is lightly soiled. $1,500. * First edition. Coke's Institutes, a monumental four-volume undertaking, represents the inaugural systematic codification of the modern common law. As observed by Carter and Muir, the work "firmly established itself as the basis of the constitution of the realm." Coke's jurisprudence remains a foundational element of the Anglo-American legal tradition; the Institutes have been cited in more than 70 U.S. Supreme Court opinions, ranging from the early Republic to 21st-century landmark rulings such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. This first volume, colloquially known as Coke on Littleton, incorporates the text of Sir Thomas Littleton's Tenures accompanied by Coke's exhaustive commentary. Walker characterizes the work as "the fruit of a lifetime's study... virtually a legal encyclopaedia, the entries hung on pegs suggested by the sentences and words of Littleton." It remained the definitive pedagogical text for generations of jurists. Hugh Lyle [1791-1847], a later owner of our copy, was from a major landowning famil.
Price: $1,500.00
Book number 84470