REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1975.tb01425.x |
| Date | 01 July 1975 |
| Published date | 01 July 1975 |
REVIEWS
THEN
AND
NOW:
1799-1974. Commemorating 175 Years
of
Law
Bookselling and Publishing. Edited
by
PETER
ALLSOP.
‘[London:
Sweet
&
Maxwell. 1974. xii and 219
pp.
(no
index).]
THIS
somewhat miscellaneous volume-its subtitle is perhaps
a
little mis-
leading-consists for the most part
of
a
series of essays on the growth (during
the period since Mr. Stephen Sweet opened his law bookshop at
3
Chancery
Lane in
1799)
of the main areas of English law by eminent specialists, for
most part academic, on the fields in question. But, as it were, spatchcocked in
among these pieces there are the advertised chapters on the history
of
law
publishing in England during that period, and also chapters on the main
“legal authors” since
1800,
and on the growth of the two branches of the
practising profession of lawyers. It is not easy to understand the arrangement
of the chapters, if indeed it was deliberate.
Mr. Peter Allsop, who appropriately edits the volume, explains in a dis-
arming Preface how the jubilee period came to be
175
years: he might have
congratulated his readers on getting the extra
25
years during which
as
many,
if not more, changes in the law and the legal system have been effected
as
in the whole of the earlier century and
a
half.
Personally
I
found the chapter on the Development of Law Publishing
1799-1974
the most interesting part of the volume. It
is
by Mr. Maurice
Maxwell who was chairman of the
firm
for many years and is
a
descendant
of the original Maxwell, not at first
a
law bookseller, but who became one
about
1811.
The Maxwells joined
up
with Sweets
as
late
as
1889,
pace
Professor Mitchell who thinks they were partners from the start.
Perhaps the most interesting fact which emerges from the early history of
law bookselling, which seems almost from the start to have included publish-
ing, is that during most of the earlier part of the nineteenth century the
principal law booksellers formed an Association which included Sweet, Max-
well, Stevens, and Butterworth. This planned the publishing programmes,
a
very necessary exercise at
a
time when the existence
of
active private enter-
prise in law reporting had produced something approaching chaos.
Mr. Maxwell’s references to Stevens, an historic firm which was not
absorbed until after the last war, and to Butterworths, now of course the
principal competitors of Sweet
&
Maxwell, are informative and benignant.
The second part
of
this chapter which forms
a
sort
of epilogue on the post-
war period is by Messrs. John Burke and Peter Allsop, now the Chairman of
the company.
In some ways the tour de force of the volume is the long chapter
(50
pages)
by Professor
Hood
Phillips on legal authors since
1800.
This
is
a
valuable,
indeed a remarkable achievement, since the books noted must run into
hundreds. It would be possible to write a chapter on it, but space permits
only a few jottings. The oldest of the law practitioners’ books still in current
use
is Woodfall’s
Landlord and Tenant
first published in
1802
(a Butterworth
book says
Mr.
Maxwell, p.
121).
Some of the remarks of Victorian reviewers which Professor Hood Phillips
has rescued are worth repeating: thus J.
F.
Stephens on
Archbold’s Criminal
Law,
“to try to read it is like trying to read
a
directory arranged partly on
geographical and partly on biographical principles.” The list
of
authors who
have become judges is very impressive-some editors of important works
have also become judges-this
I
think would include everyone who has edited
Scrutton’s Charterparties and Wills
of
Lading,
and
R.
A. Wright whose edit-
ing of
Carver’s Carriage
by
Sea
was the making of the book. There could also
be
a
section on judges who have become authors, though most of these would,
like
Russell
and Arnould be men who had retired from imperial service over-
478
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