Books and Manuscripts

London: Printed by the Assigns of Richard and Edward Atkyns, Esquires, for James Cotterell and Freeman Collins, 1683. Second edition. 12mo. (xvi), 462 pp. Contemporary full brown sheep, stamped in blind, boards and extremities worn and soiled; all edges trimmed; contemporary ownership signature on front paste-down; scattered spotting to text; in fall-down-back box. ESTC R40294 (locates 12 copies); Wing B3738E; OCLC 6902074 (locates three copies)

First published in 1666 or 1668, this scarce 1683 second edition is a practical guide for attorneys in the various English Courts, and is "concerned with the process of the different courts, with the instructions as to the manner and time of taking the various steps in an action, with the forms of pleading, with the modes of executing judgment, with the fees payable at the different offices of the courts, with the forms of conveyances and other documents which clients would be likely to need." (Sir William Searle Holdsworth, A History of English Law, Volume 6, 1924, p. 437). We can locate only 15 institutional copies, and this is the first copy to be offered at auction since 1940.

From the library of bibliophile, attorney, and long-standing Grolier Club member David Allen Fraser (1911-2003).