Brooke, Sir Robert

La Graunde Abridgement, Collecte & Escrie per le Iudge Tresreverend...

      1576 Brooke, Sir Robert [d. 1558]. La Graunde Abridgement, Collecte & Escrie per le Iudge Tresreverend Syr Robert Brooke Chivaler, Nadgairs Chiefe Iustice del Common Banke. [And] La Secounde Part du Graunde Abridgement.... [London]: In Aedibus Richardi Tottell, Duodecimo Octobris. 1576. [12 Oct. 1576]. [4], 351, 328 ff. Two parts, each with title page. Quarto (9" x 6"). Later calf, blind rules to boards, endpapers renewed, recently rebacked with raised bands and lettering piece, hinges mended. Moderate rubbing to board edges, small gilt owner stamp (of Godfrey Boate) to front. "F. Pollock/ Linc: Inn" to front pastedown. Title page printed within woodcut architectural borders, woodcut initials. Toning, offsetting and some chipping to margins of preliminaries and final leaves, light browning to outer margins of text block. Occasional early annotations, interior otherwise clean. * Second edition. Sir Robert Brooke was renowned for his great learning and probity as a judge. His Abridgement is based on Fitzherbert's Abridgement, but it contains much new material. In all, Brooke abridged nearly 21,000 cases and digested them alphabetically under 404 headings. It abridges fully the Year Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Brooke proceeded with great care and accuracy, and is believed to have had access to the original records of the Year Books. Coke calls the Abridgement "a worthy and painful work and an excellent repertory or table for the Year Books of the Law." Sir Frederick Pollock [1845-1937] was one of the greatest British judges and legal scholars of his day. His treatises on contracts, jurisprudence the common law and other subjects did much to clarify and systematize English law. Several of these were standard texts that went through several editions. He is also remembered for his collaboration with F.W. Maitland on The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I and his correspondence with Oliver Wendell Holmes, which was published posthumously as The Holmes-Pollock Letters. Coke cited in Marvin's Legal Bibliography (1847) 151-52. Beale, Bibliography of Early English Law Books R471-472.