Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press, 1768-1770. First Editions of volumes 3 and 4. Fourth Editions of volumes 1 and 2. Full calf. Quartos. Over 2,000 pages in all.

A striking quarto set of Blackstone’s Commentaries, preserved in their original 18th‑century bindings. This is the landmark work that rendered English law intelligible to the ordinary Englishman--doing for the English what Justinian's publication of Roman law did for the Roman people of Late Antiquity. Blackstone masterfully explained the traditions and reasoning underpinning common law, and this work became the primary vehicle of public understanding of the law.

The Commentaries greatly influenced America's founders and early jurists, providing the framework through which the early Republic understood, taught, and applied the law. So profound was Blackstone's influence for America's founding generations that some joked that his Commentaries were 'the Bible of the Republic.'

The four volumes are organized thus: I - The Rights of Persons; II - The Rights of Things (property); III - Of Private Wrongs (torts); and IV - Of Public Wrongs (criminal law). Volume II contains two engraved plates: Table of Consanguinity and Table of Descents (folding).

An excellent set of this landmark legal treatise.

Ref. PMM 212.

Books are bound in full calf over boards with 5 raised bands on spines, gilt-stamped titles on red leather spine labels, gilt-stamped rules and volume numbers on spines, textblock edges sprinkled in red, with handsewn head and tailbands. Bindings show minor extremity wear with shallow bumps to corners and some light rubs. A remarkably well-preserved set.

Item #2041

Price: $5,000