A Discourse on the Study of the Law; Being an Introductory Lecture.

Oxford, 1758. First ed. Christopher Clark Geest. The Genesis of Blackstone's Commentaries Blackstone, Sir William [1723-1780]. A Discourse on the Study of the Law; Being an Introductory Lecture, Read in the Public Schools, October XXV, M.DCC.LVIII. Published by Direction of the Vice-Chancellor, Heads of Houses, And Proctors. Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press, 1758. 40 pp. Quarto (10" x 8"; 25.4 x 20.3 cm). Period-style stab-stitched marbled covers, bookplate of Christopher Clark Geest to front pastedown. Moderate toning, creases and minor chips to corners of a few leaves, including title page, which has light soiling and a few minor stains, light soiling to verso of final leaf. Item housed in cloth clamshell box, printed title panel to front cover. $4,500. * First edition. This rare quarto represents the true foundation stone of modern English legal education: the published version of Sir William Blackstone's inaugural lecture as the first Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford. Delivered to a packed and enthusiastic audience on October 25, 1758, the address marked a revolutionary shift in legal academia, advocating for the first time that English common law should be taught systematically within a university setting rather than solely through the practical, chaotic apprenticeship of the Inns of Court. The lecture was an instant sensation. As Blackstone biographer William Prest notes, it was: "[h]astened into print less than a fortnight later as A Discourse on the Study of the Law, [and] by late December a London correspondent claimed to hear Blackstone's lecture 'commended wherever I go.' What one reviewer terms 'this sensible, spirited, and manly exhortation to the study of the law' was reprinted in a further thousand copies next year." The immense success of this introductory address set the stage for Blackstone's career. It was subsequently used to preface later editions of his Analysis of the Laws of England and, most famously, served as the celebrated introduction to the first volume of his monumental Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765). First editions of this landmark inaugural lecture are highly prized and increasingly difficult to find on the market. Our copy belonged to the library of Christopher Clark Geest [1926-2023], a notable historian, author, and bibliophile of Culpeper, Virginia. Geest was a passionate collector of.…