The Statutes at Large, From Magna Charta, To the Thirtieth Year...
A Landmark Edition of English Statutes with a Curious Provenance [Great Britain]. Cay, John [1700-1757], Compiler. The Statutes at Large, From Magna Charta, To the Thirtieth Year of King George the Second, Inclusive. In Six Volumes. London: Printed by Thomas Baskett, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty; And by the Assigns of Robert Baskett; And by Henry Lintot, Law-Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1758. Six volumes. Folio (15-1/2" x 10"; 39.4 x 25.4 cm). Contemporary calf, raised bands, gilt fillets and red and black lettering pieces to spines, blind tooling to board edges. Light rubbing and some shallow scuffing to boards, moderate rubbing to extremities, joints starting at ends, some chipping to spine ends, corners bumped and somewhat worn, front hinge of Volume I cracked, a few other hinges starting, bookplates of Frederick Sears Grand d'Hauteville and Susan Macomb Grand d'Hauteville to front pastedowns. Light to moderate toning to interiors, light browning foxing in places. A very good set overall of this monumental compilation. $5,000. **THIS DESCRIPTION IS TRUNCATED DUE TO CHARACTER LIMITS. PLEASE CONTACT US FOR A COMPLETE VERSION** * Only edition. John Cay's edition of The Statutes at Large is a monument of 18th-century English legal bibliography. Published a year after Cay's death, it stands as one of the most accurate, authoritative, and physically impressive compilations of British statutory law produced during the hand-press era. While earlier editions of the statutes (such as those by William Hawkins) were frequently criticized for typographical errors and omissions, Cay's edition was celebrated for its precision. John Marvin's definitive Legal Bibliography (1847) notes that this collection "was edited and printed with great care." Cay meticulously compared text against earlier records to provide a reliable reference work for the bench and bar at a time when finding a verified, clean copy of a centuries-old statute was a regular challenge for practitioners. The imprint reads like a "who's who" of high-status mid-18th-century printing houses. It reflects a shared monopoly between the King's Printers (Thomas Baskett and the Assigns of Robert Baskett) and the reigning Law-Printer to the King (Henry Lintot). Baskett held the lucrative patent for Bibles and statutes. Lintot dominated t.
Price: $5,000.00
Book number 86650