Commentaries on the Law of Promissory Notes, First Edition

1845. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1845. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1845. First Edition of Story's Final Treatise Story, Joseph [1779-1845]. Commentaries on the Law of Promissory Notes, And Guaranties of Notes, And Checks on Banks and Bankers. With Occasional Illustrations from the Commercial Law of the Nations of Continental Europe. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1845. xxviii, 675 pp. Octavo (9-1/2" x 5-3/4"). Contemporary sheep, blind fillets to boards, raised bands, blind fillets and lettering piece to spine, blind tooling to board edges. A few shallow nicks and scratches to boards, light rubbing and fading to extremities, front joint starting at foot, corners lightly bumped, front hinge cracked, rear hinge just starting, later owner signature (of Guiny Zaldastani, dated 1976) to front free endpaper and early owner signature (of N. Butler, Jr., dated 1847) to following endleaf. Moderate toning to interior, light foxing in a few places, partial crack in text block between pp. 184-185, all leaves secure, brief pencil annotations and marks to a few pages. An attractive copy. $950. * First edition of the last treatise published by Story. "Joseph Story's work on promissory notes was the last of his great treatises. (...) Unlike many of his predecessors, Story treated each aspect of commercial law separately in a series of works which included his treatises on agency (1839), partnership (1841), bills of exchange (1843) and finally the one on promissory notes. The inclusion of comparative sources from the commercial law of other countries reflects Story's view, expressed in his opinion for the Supreme Court in Swift v. Tyson (1842) that commercial law was international, not the 'law of a single country only, but of the commercial world" (Cohen). Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law 2561.