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302

A Bedrock of America's Founding.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:137.00 USD Estimated At:275.00 - 375.00 USD
A Bedrock of America's Founding.
The First Part of the Institutes Of the Laws of England. "Or, A Commentary upon Littleton, not the name of the Author only, but of the Law itself...," by Edwardo Coke. Considered one of the five greatest books of English law, impacting young America's Bill of Rights. London: John Streater, James Flesher, and Henry Twyford, 1670, 7th ed. 7 1/2 x 11 3/4, 395 pp. + extensive index of (69) pp. Original blind-ruled calf, red spine label "Coke Upon Littleton." Fascinating procession of some seven previous owners' signatures, rubber stamps, or bookplates, July 4, 1824 to 1966, the latter owner noting he paid $75; including noted attorney Edward Owen Parry (1807-81) and Oliver N. Heblich. Coat-of-arms sketched in old pencil in margin. Folding family tree showing legal definitions of descendants, with charming woodcut. An exhaustive reference work originally intended for barristers of Olde England, most pages with four columns: Latin text, English translation, extensive commentary in Old English type, plus case law citations in margin. Presenting, in 749 sections, essentially the cumulative entirety of Anglo-Norman and English property law as it stood three centuries ago; already mature, its precepts quickly took root in young America. "In American legal culture, Coke is a champion of the common law, constitutional liberty, and judicial review. Copies of Coke's writings arrived in North America on the Mayflower in 1620, and every lawyer in the English colonies and early United States was trained from Coke's books...the most famous of which was his property book, The First Institute... 'offered here]. Both John Adams and Patrick Henry argued from Coke treatises to support their revolutionary positions...Eighteenth-century colonists and later, twentieth-century historians invoked Coke to support the claim that the English common law and related liberties migrated to British North American colonies with British settlers...In 1610 Coke decided against the King's authority to make law by proclamation..."--The English Constitution and the Expanding Empire: Sir Edward Coke's British Jurisprudence, Hulsebosch, 2003. Indeed, "widely recognized as a foundational document of the common law, (Coke's treatises) have been cited in over 70 cases decided by the Supreme Court of the U.S., including several landmark cases. As recently as 1973's Roe v. Wade, Coke's Institutes are cited as evidence that under old English common law, an abortion performed before quickening was not an indictable offense. In the 1895 case of U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co., Coke's Institutes are quoted at some length for their definition of monopolies"--World Heritage Encyclopedia. Delightful mix of typefaces, itself a Herculean achievement. Boards detached and much worn, rear cover briefly used as a cutting board(!), with numerous scars; title leaf shaken, ancient paper strip reinforcement of margins of some Preface leaves, one leaf short-trimmed at wide bottom margin, no loss of text; browning and waterstains of early and late leaves, some foxing, else internally satisfactory to about very good. A charming and absorbing work, this particular example in nearly continuous service as a legal reference, through the present 21st-century consignor! Referenced by Wing C4928.
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