Commentaries of the Laws of Virginia: Comprising the Substance of a Course of Lectures Delivered to the Winchester Law School

Tucker, Henry St. George. Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia. Comprising the Substance of a Course of Lectures Delivered to the Winchester Law School. With a new Introduction by David Cobin and Paul Finkelman. Richmond: Shepherd and Colin, 1846. Two volumes. 34, 468; 24, 512 pp. Reprinted 1998 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 97-10313. Hardcover. New. * Along with James Kent's Commentaries on American Law and Joseph Story's Commentaries, Tucker's two volume work established the standard for American treatise writing and helped to organize American law. The Commentaries served as the primary reference source for the bar of Virginia as well as for many in the rest of the country until 1850, and was considered the most valuable text for students and lawyers in much of the South until the Civil War. While modeled on Blackstone's Commentaries, Tucker's work is entirely original. In that way it is a much more impressive accomplishment than his father's edition of Blackstone. The senior Tucker labored hard to annotate Blackstone, and then add to it; Tucker wrote his Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia himself, based on his lectures at Winchester Law School, which he established in 1824. The Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia cover in detail the subject matter in the first three Blackstone's Commentaries.