Publisher's Query: Holmes's "Black Book"

[We have received the following query from the managing editor of Talbot Publishing.  DRE]

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (LC)

As publishers of books on law and legal history, we are currently working on a book entitled The Black Book of Justice Holmes: Text Transcripts and Commentary, edited by Michael H. Hoeflich and Steven Epstein.

The book will consist of a facsimile of the manuscript of Justice Holmes’ Black Book (from Harvard Law Library) along with a transcription of the text, as well as introductory materials. We are very pleased to be the publishers of this book that will bring this important primary source to a larger audience.  127 of the 173 pages of transcriptions are thus far completed and in place in the book.

We are looking for general feedback in terms of page presentation,  but are also looking for scholars who might be interested in providing additional essays to be included in our prefatory materials.

Please contact vhorowitz@lawbookexchange.com.

Valerie Horowitz
Managing Editor, Talbot Publishing (an imprint of The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.)
33 Terminal Avenue, Clark, New Jersey 07066-1321
Tel: 732-382-1800; Toll Free 800-422-6686 in USA or Canada
Fax: 732-382-1887

A week in the world of Rare Law Books

Every second summer, the Rare Book School offers a weeklong intensive course that legal

From the Special Collections of Yale's Lillian Goldman Law Library

historians should know more about. Designed for librarians, scholars, and collectors, the “Law Books: History and Connoisseurship” course took place at Yale Law School last week (June 11-15, 2018). It was taught by Mike Widener, Rare Book Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, and Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections at the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center, University of Minnesota Law Library. This LHB blogger (Mitra Sharafi) took the course. I’m happy to report on its many wonders.

I was the only legal historian in the group of twelve participants. Everyone else was a librarian, whether based at a law library, special collections, or both. When I first heard about the course, I had doubts about how useful it might be for me, given my focus on research and teaching more than on managing collections. Happily, I was wrong to worry. It was fascinating and extremely useful to gain insights into the ways university special collections operate. Among other things, I gained a better sense of which law libraries in the US are actively collecting rare books in various research areas.

More after the jump.