Sampson Against the Philistines, Or the Reformation of Lawsuits..

1805. Justice Made Cheap, Speedy, And Brought to Every Man's Door" [C] [Higgins, Jesse (b. 1763), Attributed]. Sampson Against the Philistines, Or the Reformation of Lawsuits; And Justice Made Cheap, Speedy, And Brought Home to Every Man's Door: Agreeable to the Principles of the Ancient Trial by Jury, Before the Same was Innovated by Judges and Lawyers. Compiled for the Use of the Honest Citizens of the United States. To Whom It is Dedicated. [Washington, DC: Printed by W. Duane, 1805]. v, 98, xxiii (i.e. xxii) pp. Octavo (7-3/4" x 5-3/4"). Disbound, moderate toning and light foxing, light soiling and faint staining to title page and verso of final leaf, final two leaves have some loss to text due to trimming. A nice copy of a rare imprint. $950. * First edition. "The authorship of [this work] was ascribed previously to William Sampson and to William Duane. The attribution to Jesse Higgins, a wealthy Delaware landholder, is now well established, based in large part on "Memoirs of a Senator from Pennsylvania, Jonathan Roberts, 1771-1854" in Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography 62 (April 1938) 213. The work stems from Higgins's own difficulties in the chancery courts and was probably the most influential of many attacks on the legal profession in this period" (Cohen). Scharf cites a letter from Duane to Higgins indicating that printing may have commenced around November 18, 1804, which has led a few sources to give that year as a publication date. (Cohen does not agree.) A second edition, with less content than the first, was published in Philadelphia in 1805. It was re-issued in Knoxville, TN in 1817 and New York in 1842. The first edition is rare. OCLC locates 2 copies, both given an 1805 publication date (American Philosophical Society, Penn State University). Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law 1014.