Commentaries on the laws of England. In four books.

1770 LAW Blackstone Commentaries Laws of England Justice RARE 4v SET MASTERPIECE

"All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer."

― William Blackstone [Blackstone's formulation]

An incredible, valuable edition of William Blackstone's 'Commentaries on the Laws of England.' According to Lowndes, "Of these Commentaries Sir William Jones observed, 'they are the most correct and beautiful outline that ever was exhibited in any human science'."

The Commentaries are considered the most important pre-Revolution source of common and civil law in the United States. This book is famous for being used as the key to Benedict Arnold's book cipher during the American Revolution. According to the Printing and the Mind of Man:

"Blackstone's great work on the laws of England is the extreme example of justification of an existing state of affairs by virtue of its history…Until the Commentaries, the ordinary Englishman had viewed the law as a vast, unintelligible and unfriendly machine; nothing but trouble, even danger, was to be expected from contact with it. Blackstone's great achievement was to popularize the law and the traditions which had influenced its formation. He has been accused of playing to the gallery, of flattering the national vice of complacency with existing institutions. The charge is in many respects just; but it is no small achievement to change the whole climate of public opinion…Blackstone was not interested in the science of law. All law is the same to him—the law of gravity or the law of the land. The object of the latter is to distinguish between right and wrong. Rights are either the rights of persons or of things; wrongs are either public or private. These theses from the headings of the four books of the Commentaries…He takes a delight in describing and defending as the essence of the constitution the often-anomalous complexities which had grown into the laws of England over the centuries. But he achieves the astonishing feat of communicating this delight, and this is due to a style which is itself always lucid and graceful. This is the secret of Blackstone's enormous influence"(PMM 212).

Item number: #26026

Price: $2500

BLACKSTONE, William

Commentaries on the laws of England. In four books.

Oxford: printed at the Clarendon Press, 1770.

Details:

· Collation: Complete; 4 volumes

o Vol. I – [4], ii, [4], 485, [1]

o Vol. II – [8], 520, xix, [1]

o Vol. III – [8], 455, [1], xxvii, [1]

o Vol. IV – [8], 436, vii, [41]

· References: Lowndes B 212; Printing and the Mind of Man 212

· Provenance:

o Handwritten – W. B. Brigstocke, 1855

o Armorial bookplate – Yarborough

Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Earl of Yarborough (1781–1846), was one of the founders of the Royal Yacht Squadron and its first Commodore. Motto: VINCIT AMOR PATRIAE

· Language: English

· Binding: Leather; tight and secure

o Some water damage at bottom of pages throughout Vols. I, II, and IV

· Size: ~11in X 9in (28cm x 22.5cm)

· Very rare and desirable with auction records and price comparisons for this edition at upwards of $7,000

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26026

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