Jun 15, 2016 Book of the week — Reports du Tres Erudite Edmund Saunders

“…my small stock of professional knowledge…”

REPORTS DU TRES ERUDITE EDMUND SAUNDERS…
Edmund Saunders (d. 1683)
London: W. Rawlins, S. Roycroft, and M. Flesher, 1686
First edition

Edmund Saunders grew up in poverty. He taught himself to read and write and eventually became Lord Chief Justice during the reign of Charles II. Thomas Roscoe in Westminster Hall, (1825) wrote that Saunders, “…by books that were lent to him, became an exquisite entering clerk; and, by the same course of improvements of himself, an able counsel…” His classic Reports was read by John Quincy Adams (1767-1848).

In a letter to his father, John Adams (1735-1826), written from Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1789, the younger Adams lists this book, along with Blackstone, as one of those that “contributed to my small stock of professional knowledge” while he apprenticed as an attorney. University of Utah copy has minimal marginalia in contemporary hand throughout. University of Utah copy gift of Tony and Catherine Weller, Weller Book Works.

View the original article on the OpenBook Blog