Charles Dickens Legal Historian
$40
In stock
Description
Charles Dickens As Legal Historian by William S Holdsworth. Yale University Press : New Haven, Connecticut. 1928. First edition.
This unusual legal and literary analysis by Oxford historian William Holdsworth draws attention to the details Charles Dickens uses to establish characters and settings, demonstrating how the author’s descriptions of law offices, lawyers’ homes, and families provide valuable insights for social history. Although most applicable to the understanding of the state of the United Kingdom in the 19th century, this study of the Pickwick Papers, Bleak House, David Copperfield, and other Dickens classics highlights what his fiction can help us learn about the then-extant ecosystem of courts, clerks, and common law. Of particular interest might Holdsworth’s chapter on the use of the Court of Chancery in Dickens’ Bleak House, a centuries old system for the application of “conscience law”, ahead of its disbandment in 1875.
8vo, 157pp, three-quarter bound in red and tan cloth, title sticker affixed to spine. Minor scuff to front board lower edge. Wear to corners. Spine darkened with wear to spine ends. Title sticker missing lower corner, cutting off half of author’s name. Bookblock and pages toned. Small scuff to lower bookblock edge. Good condition.
If you liked this book, you might also like this copy of Illegitimate Children and Their Parents on the legal rights of post-war British orphans.
