“JOHN, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his officials and loyal subjects, Greeting.” In 2015, such an aureate introduction won’t even fit in a tweet. But in 1215, […]
Rare Books
A Bounty of Bookplates
The Osgoode Library has purchased a modest collection of twenty-eight bookplates of various Canadian legal personages. These bookplates are of interest for biographical, bibliographical and professional reasons, and are also sure to be of interest to Game of Thrones fans for their assortment of family sigils and words, or in heraldic parlance, charges and mottoes. […]
The Lawes Resolution of Women’s Rights, or The Woman’s Lawyer (1632)
The Balfour Halevy Special Collections has acquired an exciting new item, The Lawes Resolution of Women’s Rights, also known as The Woman’s Lawyer. Why is this exciting? The Woman’s Lawyer is the earliest work in English devoted to laws relating exclusively to women. Some particular topics include the age of consent, dower, hermaphrodites, polygamy, wooing, […]
Alexander Buchanan (1798-1852) and His Books: Part 2: Early Canadian Legal Education
In my previous post, I talked about Alexander Buchanan, his place in Canadian history, and his library. In this post, I'd like to talk about one specific book from Buchanan's collection, it's special place in Osgoode's Balfour Halévy Special Collections library. Also, I'd like to discuss a singular and exceptional document from Buchanan's hand and […]
Alexander Buchanan (1798-1851) and His Books: Part 1
It may simply be an instance of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but it seems like everywhere I turn in our rare book room I run into vestiges of Alexander Buchanan. As a reasonably important historical figure, it's not surprising to see his name pop up here and there every now and then, but this barrage of […]
A Topsy-Turvy Image of the Lawyer-Client Relationship
With its classical symmetry, coffered ceiling, modern furnishings and book-lined walls, all suffused with old book smell (“A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness”), the Canada Law Book Rare Book Room is a near perfect space and a wonderful place to work. The […]
Election Special - Five True Patriot Tips from 1899
Our provincial election is coming up, but I’m sure that many of us are still scratching our heads and wondering which way to send our vote. As established by Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is our right as citizens to vote in federal and provincial elections, and it is […]
Glanvill's Tractatus: The First Treatise on English Law (ca 1188, First Print Ed 1554)
Glanvill, Ranulf de, 1130-1190. Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie. Londini : In aedibus Richardi Totteli, 1554. [1st edition]. ― Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliae. Londini : postant venales apud J. White et E. Brooke, 1780. [3rd edition]. “Here begins the treatise on the laws and customs of the realm of England, composed […]
Size Matters
Over the past few months, members of the law library staff, myself included, have been preparing to reorganize our special collections. Now, as all savvy library users know, libraries generally organize their collections and shelve their books by subject. You’re all familiar with the Library of Congress classification system, used in academic libraries throughout the English-speaking […]
A Distinguished Doodle - and How to Catalogue It
After I wrote my previous post on finding those two books containing Sir John A. MacDonald’s autographs, I remembered another discovery of mine. I found this friendly fellow – with excellent hipster facial hair, I might add – as I was recataloguing books the other day. He looks to me like he belongs in one […]