The Commentaries, Or Reports of Edmund Plowden, Of the Middle-Temple.

1761. London: Catharine Lintot & Samuel Richardson, 1761. London: Catharine Lintot & Samuel Richardson, 1761. First Edition in English of the First Nominative Reporter Plowden, Edmund [1518-1585]. The Commentaries, Or Reports of Edmund Plowden, Of the Middle-Temple, Esq; An Apprentice of the Common Law, Containing Divers Cases upon Matters of Law, Argued and Adjudged in the Several Reigns of King Edward VI. Queen Mary, King and Queen Philip and Mary, And Queen Elizabeth. Originally Written in French, And now Faithfully Translated into English, And Considerably Improved by Many Marginal Notes and References to All the Books of the Common Law, Both Ancient and Modern. To Which are Added, The Quaeries of Mr. Plowden, Now First Rendered into English at Large, With References, And Many Useful Observations. In Two Parts. With Two New Tables, More Compleat than any Yet Published, The One, Of the Names of the Cases, The Other of the Principal Matters. [London]: Printed by Catharine Lintot, and Samuel Richardson, 1761. vi, [2], 401, [3], 403-567, [1]; 15, [1]; [2], 68; [48] pp. Two parts. Part II has a separate title page beginning: The Second Part of the Commentaries... with the imprint: "London: Printed for the Translator..., 1761." This is followed by "The Case of Basset and Morgan Versus Manxel. at Serjeant's Inn" and The Quaeries of Edmund Plowden..., which has separate pagination and a title page with the same imprint and date of The Second Part. Last Copperplate portrait frontispiece. Pagination and register continuous. Final leaf of "The Case" (pp. 14-15) misbound at end of The Quaeries. Text complete. Folio (14" x 9"). Contemporary calf, rebacked in period style, blind rules to boards, blind fillets along joints, raised bands and lettering piece to spine, blind tooling to board edges, endpapers renewed. Light rubbing and a few minor nicks and scuffs to boards, moderate rubbing to board edges, corners bumped and somewhat worn. Light toning to text, somewhat heavier in places, occasional light foxing at rear of text, light soiling and faint offsetting from frontispiece to title page. $1,000. * First edition in English. Covering the years 1550-1580, Plowden's Reports was the first nominative reporter and the first to go beyond arguments to deduce points of law. "In every sort of professional excellence [it ranks] among the best reports of any age" (Wallace). The translation has a great number of addit.