Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 4: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765-1769

Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769) stands as the first great effort to reduce the English common law to a unified and rational system. Blackstone demonstrated that the English law as a system of justice was comparable to Roman law and the civil law of the Continent. Clearly and elegantly written, the work achieved immediate renown and exerted a powerful influence on legal education in England and in America which was to last into the late nineteenth century. The book is regarded not only as a legal classic but as a literary masterpiece.

Previously available only in an expensive hardcover set, Commentaries on the Laws of England is published here in four separate volumes, each one affordably priced in a paperback edition. These works are facsimiles of the eighteenth-century first edition and are undistorted by later interpolations. Each volume deals with a particular field of law and carries with it an introduction by a leading contemporary scholar.

Introducing this fourth and final volume, Of Public Wrongs, Thomas A. Green examines Blackstone's attempt to rationalize the severity of the law with what he saw as the essentially humane inspiration of English law. Green discusses Blackstone's ideas on criminal law, criminal procedure, and sentencing.

Stanley N. Katz is a professor of public and international affairs and the director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University.

A.W. Brian Simpson is the Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.

John H. Langbein is the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale University.

Thomas. A. Green is the John P. Dawson Collegiate Professor of Law and professor of history at the University of Michigan.