Stephen, Henry John; Stephen, James (editor); Blackstone, William

New commentaries on the laws of England (partly founded on Blackstone) [4 volumes]

Butterworths, 1853. Third Edition. Leather Binding. Very Good. Item #626959

SUPERB PROVENANCE: Presentation copy, inscribed opposite title page of Volume I by the publishers to a leading 19th-century British figure, both prominent and infamous: 'Sir Charles E. Trevelyan K.C.B. etc. etc. etc. With the Publisher's respects.' This is followed by a second inscription in Trevelyan's own distinctive hand presenting it in turn 'and by him transfered to his nephew Charles George Perceval September 1869.' Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, 1st Baron (1807-1886), had a long career of distinction (and some infamy) as a civil servant and colonial administrator. He is credited as the founder of the modern British Civil Service and with numerous reforms in India, but is also held in part responsible for widespread death and suffering during the Great Famine in Ireland, and a later related famine in Scotland. Each volume further bears the engraved armorial bookplate of Charles George Perceval, 7th Earl of Egmont and Baron Arden, and the later signatures of Lucy, Countess of Egmont, September, 1897. The Third edition of this noted work following Blackstone, 1853. 4 volumes, complete as issued. Uniformly bound in full 19th-century brown calf, spines with raised bands, contrasting red and green morocco labels, and gilt-ruled compartments, covers bordered with twin gilt fillets and a repeating border in blind with gilt rosettes at corner, gilt-tooled inner dentelles, all edges extra gilt, marbled endpapers (spines darkened with wear, rubbing to joints with cracking to rear cover of volume IV).

Price: $1,095.00