Sir William Blackstone Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

English jurist and writer SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE (1723-1780) began to practice law in 1746, but after earning a Doctorate of Civil Law (1750), his interest in common law began to grow, and Blackstone concentrated on teaching at Oxford. He was the first to lecture on English law at the university level. Blackstone's lectures were published as An Analysis of the Law of England (1756). Two years later, he was appointed the first Chair of the Vinerian professorship of common law (1758-1766), and Blackstone delivered lectures that became the basis of his four-volume Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765-1769). By the year of his Barrington letter (1775), Commentaries was in its seventh edition and became the canon for learning university-level law in England and North America. By 1770, renowned for his jurisprudence, Blackstone retired, spending the last decade of his life in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England.