Jewels in the Crown: Classics

The Riesenfeld Center's current exhibit, "Jewels in the Crown: Highlights from the Arthur C. Pulling Rare Books Collection," offers an overview of collection strengths and individual gems from more than 25,000 volumes that comprise the Pulling Collection.  Significantly developed by Arthur C. Pulling, the Law Library's director from 1912 to 1942, the Collection has a number of strengths, including English law, colonial and early American law, territorial and US state law, letters and works by and about Clarence Darrow, American Indian law, early international law, and Roman and canon law.  Selections from these and more are on display.

Magna Carta.  London, 1531

Among classic works of English and American law, the exhibit features an annotated Year Book from the reign of Edward IV (1461-83), one of the early English case reports and a hallmark of the Anglo-American legal system.  Also on display are an early printed Magna Carta (the Center holds fourteen editions of Magna Carta printed before 1600), key Congressional laws, including the first US session laws, and Thomas Paine's widely read spur to the Revolution, Common Sense.

Magna Carta. London, 1531.
De termino Michaelis anno. XV. regni Regis Edwardi Quarti. London, 1572.
William Blackstone (1723-1780), Commentaries on the Laws of England. Vol. 1. Dublin, 1766.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress ... London, 1775.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Common Sense. Philadelphia, 1776.
Acts passed at a Congress of the United States of America, begun and held at the city of New-York, on Wednesday, the fourth of March … New-York, 1789.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections