A Treatise of the Laws for the Relief and Settlement of the Poor

London: J Butterworth and Son, 1814. Leather. Fair. 8.5" by 5.5". None. A very scarce original copy of this important work by Michael Nolan, with interesting annotations. Three volumes fully bound in the original leather with gilt lettering. Michael Nolan was a Barrister of Law at Lincoln's Inn. He provides a thorough overview of England's influential poor laws as they stood during the opening decades of the Industrial Revolution. Nolan's wide-ranging study includes a history of the subject and discussions of such topics as property ratability, work-relief and settlement by marriage. This volume was previously owned by Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert Ickleton and contains his bookplate. Ickleton was an Eldon Law Scholar and private secretary to Gladstone. The bindings themselves are reasonably secure, although the front board of volumes one and two is detached from the book with the front endpaper. There is considerable wear to the extremities including ink stains and writing to the boards, bumping to the corners and scuffing to the leather. Internally, the pages are generally clean with the odd brown spot or handling mark and some copperplate annotations. The endpapers have been used to write notes or sketch pictures. Fair