Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2009 Issue

Legal Works from The Lawbook Exchange

Legal works from the Lawbook Exchange.

Legal works from the Lawbook Exchange.


By Michael Stillman

The Lawbook Exchange has issued Catalogue 62, with the lengthy title, Recently Acquired Books and Other Items from the Sixteenth through the Twentieth Centuries: American, English and Continental, Featuring a Collection of Books from the Library of Stephen Eno. For those not familiar with Eno, he was a schoolteacher in New York's Dutchess County who became a lawyer and civic leader in the early 19th century. His office was in Pine Plains, but he also served clients in the Poughkeepsie area. These are a few of the books in this latest Lawbook collection.

Item 44 is one of the most important American books of jurisprudence ever written: The Common Law, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Published in 1881, Holmes argued that the law was not some type of unbending, mathematical formula, but a body of practices built on experience. Holmes changed legal thinking not only in America but England as well, though the debate continues to this day whether the law and U.S. Constitution is a document fixed in time or one which grows with the times. Priced at $1,500.

For those interested in constitutional law (especially those who can read French), item 107 is Constitutions des Treize Etats-Unis de l'Amerique (constitutions of the thirteen states of America). This is a first French edition of copies of the constitutions of the then 13 American states, still only loosely connected in the year of publication - 1783. Benjamin Franklin had requested the translation as something of a promotion for the new nation to his friends in Europe. This book was printed in a limited run of 600 copies, and contains over 50 footnotes written by Franklin. $2,750.

Here is another American constitution and the laws passed under it, but its history is much briefer. Item 17 is Compiled Laws of the Cherokee Nation, published in 1881. It includes the Cherokee constitution of 1839, created after the eastern Cherokees were forcibly marched to Oklahoma over the "Trail of Tears" to join the western Cherokees. The Cherokees adopted a constitution in many ways similar to that of the U.S., with notable exceptions for such things as land ownership. Later laws covered such items as the abolition of slavery and treaties with other Indian nations. The Cherokees hoped that by adopting a western style constitution, they would be able to remain an independent nation. However, the U.S. government brought an end to an independent, landed Indian nation when it ordered the Cherokee nation common lands distributed as private property to individual Cherokees, who could in turn sell the land to white settlers. $1,000.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Buzz Aldrin's FLOWN Apollo 11 Crew-Signed NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Cover. $15,000 to $20,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Lunar Surface Flown Mission Emblem Presented to Tom Stafford by John Young. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Extensive Chronology of Spacecraft From Apollo to Skylab, Signed by a Member of Every Crewed Apollo Flight and the Commanders of Each Skylab Mission. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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