Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian

Sir William Searle Holdsworth

ian. 2010 · The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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Holdsworth proves that historians should study the novels of Charles Dickens as source material about the workings of English law and legal institutions. He shows how Bleak House highlights the procedures of the Court of Chancery, and Pickwick Papers illuminates the procedure of the common law. The addresses contained in this book were delivered in the William L. Storrs Lecture Series, 1927, before the Law School of Yale University. "The distinguished English historian, Professor Holdsworth, has contrived even during his moments of recreation to render us his debtors. No two books outside the bounds of technical law are more worth reading for law students than Pickwick Papers and Bleak House. Even a trained trial lawyer however, is puzzled by some of the legal points brought up by Dickens, because they have fortunately passed forever out of the realm of living law. Professor Holdsworth has performed a valuable service to lawyers and laymen alike in explaining these obscurities. And he has done much more than this. He has increased our admiration for the genius of Dickens by proving his great merit as a legal historian." Zechariah Chafee, Jr. Harvard Law Review 42:286-8. CONTENTS: I. The Courts and the Dwellings of the Lawyers II. The Lawyers, Lawyers' Clerks, and Other Satellites of the Law III. Bleak House and the Procedure of the Court of Chancery IV. Pickwick and the Procedure of the Common Law Index AUTHOR BIO: Distinguished Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford University, Sir William Searle Holdsworth (1871-1944) is widely known for his seminal 17-volume History of English Law as well as others including The Historians of Anglo-American Law, An Historical Introduction to the Land Law, and The Law of Succession.