"STRANGE'S REPORTS ENDURED IN THEIR USEFULNESS FOR THE REST OF THE CENTURY AND AFTER"

STRANGE, John. Reports of Adjudged Cases in the Courts of Chancery, King's Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer, from Trinity Term in the second Year of King George I to Trinity Term in the twenty-first Year of King George II. London: Henry Lintot, 1755. Two volumes. Thick folio, contemporary full tan calf, raised bands, red morocco spine labels. $2400.

First edition of this posthumously published collection of reports and transcriptions of cases from 1715 to 1750, with engraved frontispiece portrait of Strange in the first volume, in contemporary calf boards.

Strange served as Solicitor General early in his career and was Master of the Rolls—the senior Civil Justice judge—at the time of his death in 1754. From early in his career he had been compiling notes and transcripts of legal cases. "Before his death Strange had been preparing his collection of reports for publication. Because of his willingness to lend his notes to judges there had been many opportunities for copies of this material, unscrupulously obtained, to pass into the hands of legal hacks. It included summaries and arguments of cases where no judgment had been made. It was Strange's chief concern, therefore, to have ready a definitive compilation of reports of adjudged cases that could be published in the event of any pirating of his work. Accordingly, when some of Strange's case notes did indeed appear shortly after his death under the title of A Collection of Select Cases Relating to Evidence, by a Late Barrister-at-Law, his executors acted swiftly to suppress it, and in 1755 his eldest son published the reports as authentically selected, dedicating them to Lord Hardwicke. Reprinted in second and third editions in 1782 and 1795, Strange's reports endured in their usefulness for the rest of the century and after" (DNB). Evidence of bookplate removal in both volumes.

Interior quite clean, handsome contemporary calf binding with expert repairs and restoration to joints, spine ends and board extremities.