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BLACKSTONE, William.
Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1775.
Four volumes, octavo, frontispiece portrait; attractively bound in old full tan calf, banded spines.
A beautiful early set, the seventh edition, of Blackstone's famous Commentaries.
Educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, Blackstone had a long career at the bar, but was also heavily involved at All Souls and at the Clarendon Press. He retired from the bar in 1752 to devote himself to academic life. His magnum opus was the Commentaries, they were reprinted continually, and translated into French, German, Italian and Russian.
His work made an automatic inclusion in Printing and the Mind of Man, with the comment: '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. The progress of law in England had had but few commentators, all of whome had approached it from an empiric point of view; it lacked the attention of a scientific jurist… Blackstone's great achievement was to popularize the law and the traditions which had influenced its formation… The law might be as much of an ass after Blackstone as before, but it was a familiar ass.'
Printing and the Mind of Man, 212 (first edition).
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