A Preparative to Pleading Being a Work Intended for the Instruction.

London, 1685. Second edition. Restoring the Art of Pleading Townesend, George. A Preparative to Pleading: Being a Work Intended for the Instruction of Young Clerks of the Court of Common Pleas. London: Printed by the Assigns of Richard and Edward Atkins, 1685. [viii], 236, [2] pp. Duplicate title page following text block. Octavo (6-3/4" x 3-3/4"). Contemporary sheep, blind rules to boards, rebacked retaining most of existing spine, no pastedowns. Moderate rubbing, scuffing and a few nicks and scratches to boards, somewhat heavier rubbing to board edges, corners bumped and lightly worn, hinges cracked, faint offsetting to margins of preliminaries, free endpapers lightly edgeworn, brief recent pencil annotation to front free endpaper. Toning to interior, occasional light foxing. $750. * Second edition. Townesend was a clerk of the Court of Common Pleas. First published in 1675, he wrote his manual to improve the quality of pleadings, which had "much decayed" during the Civil War and Protectorate. It aimed to "direct Attornies and Young Clerks, in the formalities of their Words and Writings" so "their Businesses may be more Clerklike drawn, and fairly entred on record" (Preface). A substantial portion of this work is devoted to language, including English words Latinized, English among French, Latin among French, doubtful expressions, exposition of words and the formality of writing. The work was well-received. Its fourth and final edition was published in 1721. All are scarce today. OCLC locates 7 copies of this 1685 edition in North American law libraries (Columbia, Library of Congress, Yale, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, San Francisco, Los Angeles County). English Short-Title Catalogue R7084.…