Commentaries On The Laws Of England (4 volumes)

Oxford; Clarendon Press; 1766; 68; 68; 69; Quarto;, 1766-1769. 2nd. Hardcover. Acceptable. 4 volume set. Volumes I and II are second editions, Volumes III and IV are first editions. Quartos. Bound in fine modern beige leather. Gilt spine. Gilt rule to boards. 5 raised bands. Marbled endpapers. Marginal damp stain throughout, affecting text of first few pages in each volume, affecting text in Vol. III throughout. Soot to prelims and page ends. Early signature of John Spence to title page. Grolier, 100 English, 52. Printing and the Mind of Man 212. Rothschild 407.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... Blackstone's great achievement was to popularize the law and the traditions which had influenced its formation... 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. - (Printing In the Mind of Man).