A RELIABLE GUIDE TO LIQUOR LAWS IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND

OKE, George Colwell. GLEN, W. Cunningham, editor. The Laws as to Licensing Inns, &c. &c. Containing the Licensing Acts, 1872, 1874, and the Other Acts in Force as to Alehouses, Beerhouses, Wine & Refreshment Houses, Shops, &c. Where Intoxicating Liquors are Sold, and Billiard and Occasional Licences. London: Butterworths, 1874. 12mo, contemporary full straight-grain morocco gilt, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, all edges marbled, marbled endpapers. $1250.

Uncommon treatise on licensing laws for taverns, the first edition to include the Licensing Acts of both 1872 and 1874, handsomely bound.

The complex Licensing Act of 1872—intended for "repressing of drunkenness, and restraining the inordinate haunting of inns, ale-houses, and other victualling houses"—caused a great deal of confusion regarding new regulations on sales, ingredients, hours, etc. George Colwell Oke, chief clerk to the Lord Mayor of London and author of a number of well-regarded books on legal topics, published the first edition of this treatise shortly after the passing of the act to provide a complete explanation of the law as it affected taverns as of that date. The work appears here in a new, updated version following the Licensing Act of 1874, edited by Middle Temple barrister William Cunningham Glen after Oke's death. Despite the title page calling this the second edition, it is in fact the first to incorporate the changes of 1874. Sweet & Maxwell II, 261.

Contents extremely clean and fresh, in a lovely binding with the spine evenly toned by age.