Law Rare Books Collection

The Law Rare Books Collection is an important public collection of rare and early legal texts. The collection is of research significance not only to lawyers, but also to researchers of legal, social and cultural history. It has particularly strong holdings of early printed law texts; law reports, seventeenth-century political pamphlets, classic legal texts and material relating to Australian Federation and the early years of the Commonwealth. Its nineteenth-century holdings are a good representative example of a colonial lawyer’s library and are significant for what they can tell us about the practice of law in early Victoria.

The collection’s links to the beginnings of the University of Melbourne – via the collections of individuals such as William Edward Hearn and Sir Redmond Barry – make it of particular significance to Melbourne Law School and the University community more broadly. There are also volumes from the personal collections of prominent Melbourne Law School alumni, including Sir Owen Dixon, Sir John Minogue, and Sir Isaac Isaacs.

---

Highlights of the collection include:

A-C

• Australian Federation, series of five large volumes of material relating to Australian Federation and the early years of the Commonwealth, compiled by J.G. (John Garibaldi) Roberts from 1889.

•  Aryan Household: its structure and its development: an introduction to comparative jurisprudence. (Melbourne, George Robertson, 1878) By Hearn and presented by him to Sir Redmond Barry.

• Coke's commentary on the Magna Carta and a selection of other medieval statutes.

• A Collection of Entrees [i.e. entries] : Of declarations, barres, replications, reioinders, issues, verdits, iudgements, By Willaim Rastell [London], In aedibus Iane Yetsweirt relictae Caroli Yetsweirt, 1596.

• Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone, several early editions (1768, 1771, 1773 and 1775). [Volumes available from multiple editions in print and/or digital format]

• The Common-Wealth of England and the manner and gouernement thereof, by Sir Thomas Smith, London, Printed by Will. Stansby for I. Smethwicke, and are to be sold at his shop, 1633.

• A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1783 with Notes and Other Illustrations, London, R. Bagshaw, 1809-1828.

D-F

• De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae libri quinque, the first printed edition of Henry de Bracton's work, the first systematic textbook of English law, London, Apud Richardum Tottellum, 1569.

• De verborum significatione: the exposition of the termes and difficill vvordes, conteined in the fovre bviks of Regiam majestatem, the first edition of Sir John Skene's dictionary of Scottish legal terms, Edinburgh, Printed be Robert VValde-graue, 1597.

• Ephermeris Parliamentaria: Or a faithful register of the transactions in Parliament in the third and fourth years of the reign of our late Sovereign Lord King Charles, containing the severall speeches, cases and arguments of law transacted betwenn His Majesty and both Houses, together with the grand mysteries of the Kingdom then in agitation, Parliamentary speeches from 1627 and 1628, perhaps a precursor to the modern-day Hansard, (London, John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, 1654). This book is notable for its red and black title page.

• The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, or, A Commentary upon Littleton: with the addition of notes and references, by Sir Edward Coke, London, Printed by T. Wright for E. Brooke (successor to Messrs. Worrall and Tovey), 1788.

G-M

• The History of the Common Law of England: Divided into twelve chapters, by Sir Matthew Hale, [London], In the Savoy: printed by E. and R. Nutt, and R. Gosling, (assigns of Edw. Sayer, Esq;) for T. Waller, 1739. (First ever history of the common law).

• The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, by Sir Frederick Pollock, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1895.

• The Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale, Kt., sometime Lord Chief Justice of His Majesties Court of Kings Bench, a rare edition by Gilbert Burnet, London, Printed for William Taylor, 1682.

• Littleton's Tenures in English, by Sir Thomas Littleton, London, R. Tottill, 1583.

• Mercurius Politicus: Comprising the summe of all intelligence, with the affairs and designs now on foot, in the three nations of England, Ireland, and Scotland (no. 129, dated 18-25 November 1652), a newsbook.

P-S

• Perkins' Profitable Book Treating on the Laws of England (1597), written in Latin and Law French and including a forerunner of the contemporary index.

• Personal Remembrances of Sir Frederick Pollock, second baronet, sometime Queen's remembrancer, By Sir Frederick Pollock, London, Macmillan, 1887.

• Plutology (one of the extremely rare Melbourne imprints and inscribed 'John  MacFarland Esq...with the Author's Kind Regards". by Hearn

• The Reports of Richard Brownlow and John Goldesborough, Esquire: the first and second part, by Richard Brownlow and John Goldesborough, London, 1675.

• The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Containing the exposition of many ancient and other statutes whereof you may see the particulars in a table following, by Sir Edward Coke, London, Printed for A. Crooke, W. Leake, A. Roper, F. Tyton, T. Dring, T. Collins, J. Place, W. Place, J. Starkey, T. Basset, R. Pawlett, S. Heyrick, and G. Daws, 1669.

• Select Trials at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey, for murders, robberies, rapes, sodomy, coining, frauds, bigamy, and other offences: to which are added, genuine accounts of the lives....and dying speeches of the most eminent convicts, London, Printed by J. Applebee, for James Hodges, 1742.
• a series of political pamphlets dating from the English Civil War

• A Serious and Faifthfull Representation of the Judgements of Ministers of Gospell within the Province of London, a 1649 rare pamphlet.

• Sir Robert Brooke's abridgment of the Year Books.

• Speech to the Parliament in the Painted Chamber at their Dissolution, Published to Prevent Mistakes and False Copies. (1655), from a series of English parliamentary speeches published as pamphlets from the reign of Charles I.

• Statutes at Large, Barry's volumes containing his bookplate, and some have his signature. The first volume also contains hand-written notes.

• the story of Ikey Solomons, the real-life model for Fagin in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.

 

T-Z

• The Theory of Legal Duties and Rights: An introduction to analytical jurisprudence (Melbourne, John Ferres, Govt. Printer, 1883), a copy of the printer's proof which also includes Hearn's hand-written corrections and annotations.
• A Treatise on the Law of Marine Insurance and Average: With references to the American cases, and the later continental authorities, by Joseph Arnould, London, V. & R. Stevens and G.S. Norton, H. Sweet, and W. Mazxwell, 1857.

• the trials of Charles I, Andrew Johnson and various titles about the Tichborne Claimant, which are available through the Library catalogue.

Items from the Rare Book Collection cannot be borrowed but are available to view for research purposes. Copying is available in some circumstances. Please see staff at the loans desk on Level 3 for assistance or call ph 8344 8913 Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 5:00pm, to make arrangements to use the Rare Book Collection.