An Abridgment of Penal Statutes [With] An Appendix to Addington's..

1795. A Tabular Guide to Crime and Punishment from Eighteenth-Century England Addington, Sir William [d.1811]. An Abridgment of Penal Statutes, Which Exhibits at One View The Offences, And the Punishment or Penalties, In Consequence of Those Offences, The Mode of Recovering, And Application of the Penalties, The Number of Witnesses, And the Jurisdiction Necessary to the Several Convictions, And the Chapters and Sections of the Enacting Statutes, Including the Fifth Session of the Seventeenth Parliament, 1795. With Large Additions and Annotations: To Which are Subjoined, Extracted from Reporters of the Best Authority, And Inserted Under Their Proper Heads, A Great Variety of Adjudged Cases. And to the Whole is Annexed, A Table of Contents. London: Printed for the Author, By Cooper and Graham, 1795. 861, [91] pp. [Bound with] An Appendix to Addington's Abridgment of Penal Statutes, In Which are Noticed Such as Have Been Repealed, And Such as Have Been Enacted Since the Publication of the Said Work in 1795, To the Dissolution of the Parliament in the Present Year 1802 [Caption Title]. [Bath: Keenes, Printers, (1802)]. 7, [1] pp. Bound after second leaf of Abridgment. Quarto (11-1/2" x 9"). Recent quarter imitation calf over cloth, gilt fillets, title and date to spine, endpapers renewed, edges of text block untrimmed. Negligible light shelfwear, spine ends and corners bumped, rear hinge starting. Moderate toning to interior, very light foxing in a few places, small stains (printers' flaws?) to first two leaves of Abridgment with loss to a few words of text on title page, which has an early owner signature (W.C. Medlycott) to its foot, author signature and copy number (191) to title page and p. 521, as in all copies. $450. * Fourth stated edition, actually the sixth. This useful reference went through nine editions, the final one in 1812. Its detailed descriptions of rogues, vagabonds, thieves, gambling, commercial fraud, illegitimacy, bootlegging, poaching, forgery, sumptuary laws, actors, poverty, bawdy houses and other colorful topics offers fascinating insights into English social history during the later decades of the eighteenth century. According to the preface, the Abridgment was based on the author's commonplace book. The former owner of this copy was likely Sir William Coles Medlycott [1767.