Description
The first edition of Ehrlich’s Blackstone, signed by the editor, San Francisco trial lawyer and lecturer, J.W. Ehrlich.
Octavo, x, 987pp. Blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on the spine. Stated “First Edition” on the copyright page. Blue topstain. Light sunning along top quarter of text block. Internally clean. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $15.00 retail price on front flap, shelf wear, a few closed tears, chipping along top edge of the rear panel.
This copy is inscribed on the front free endpaper to California legislator, John B. Vasconcellos Jr.: “For John Bernard Vasconcellos, Jr / with my sincere wish for your success in the law. Cordially, J.W. Ehrlich / 1959.”
This work is Ehrlich’s edition of Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. It condenses and edits the landmark eighteenth-century legal treatise for modern readers. The editor, J.W. Ehrlich, was a prominent San Francisco trial lawyer and legal writer. He was part of the 1957 defense team for Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the City Lights in the Howl obscenity trial. Ehrlich wrote and edited several legal books, including The Lost Art of Cross-Examination, A Reasonable Doubt, and the autobiography A Life in My Hands.
