Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, Signed Presentation Copy.
Inscribed by Frankfurter to the Son of His First Legal Mentor and Benefactor Frankfurter, Felix (1882-1965). Felix Frankfurter Reminisces: Recorded in Talks with Dr. Harlan B. Phillips. New York: Reynal & Company, [1960]. Fourth printing (July 1960). Octavo 8.5" x 6"; 21.6 x 15.2 cm. ix, 310 pp. Publisher's blue cloth, spine titled in gilt. Moderate dampstaining to lower front cloth cover and extending across approximately 2 inches of the lower rear cover; light rubbing to corners. Housed in the publisher's original, structurally compromised dust jacket; jacket is graded poor to fair, missing a 1-inch by 1-inch chip at the head of the spine, a 1/4-inch chip at the foot of the spine, and entirely lacking the front flap. Features a major association presentation inscription from Justice Frankfurter on the front free endpaper to the son of his first legal benefactor: "For Jim Byrne Jr., / with cordial good wishes / and in happy recollection / of his father, whose me- / mory I greatly cherish. / Nov. 25/61 / Felix Frankfurter." $300. Transcribed from an intensive series of interviews conducted for the Columbia University Oral History Research Department, this text represents the only commercially published oral history featuring a sitting United States Supreme Court justice. The recipient of this copy, James MacGregor Byrne, was the son of the eminent New York attorney James Byrne (1857-1942). The senior Byrne handed Frankfurter his first professional legal position in 1906 and later established the permanent endowment for the Byrne Professorship of Administrative Law at Harvard Law School, the very chair Frankfurter occupied for decades prior to his Supreme Court appointment. This foundational relationship is explicitly detailed within the text on page 128, where Frankfurter fondly characterizes the senior Byrne as a "great lawyer," preserving his early critiques of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's rapid legislative expansions.
Price: $300.00
Book number 87279