COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND IN FOUR BOOKS
BLACKSTONE, William
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1766-1769. First Edition Second Edition of the first volume and First Edition of the other three volumes. Four quarto (8-1/2" x 11") volumes bound in contemporary sheep with the owner's coat of arms stamped on all covers, recently rebacked with new calf spines with gilt-lettered contrasting morocco spine labels. Illustrated with two plates, one folding. The Earl of Bedford's copy with his arms on the covers and his Woburn Abbey bookplates dated 1873 on the front pastedowns. Light, sporadic foxing. Some old staining to covers of two volumes. Near Fine set, attractively bound Leather_bound (Item ID: 015337)
$6,500.00
PRINTING AND THE MIND OF MAN 212: "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."