Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First (in Four Books)

"...man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness. This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law."

-Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book One(1765)



Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book One by Sir William Blackstone (1825) is the first in a four-volume set originally published between 1765 and 1770. This edition is the 16th, released in 1825, and includes notes by J. T. Coleridge. Lauded as influential and readable, Blackstone's work has been a foundational text for law schools in Europe and the United States. This volume focuses on the rights of persons from king to commoner. Readers looking for a more condensed version of this must-have law text may want the abridged edition combining all four volumes, also available from Cosimo Classics.