A BOOKE OF PRESIDENTS, With Additions of diuers necessarie Instruments, meete for all such as desire to learne the manner and forme how to make Euidences and instruments, &c. as in the Table of this Booke more plainely appeareth.

London: Imprinted by Thomas Wight, 1600. Early Edition.. Small octavo [145 x 95 mm]; contemporary vellum, collating complete: [8] leaves + 125 leaves + [7] leaves [Table]; A1-S4, complete. Bad wear and fraying to the outer margins of leaves 118 - [132] [the final leaf], although with virtually no loss of text due to the very wide outer margins; some minor worming, mostly confined to the inner margins; a few ink notes in a contemporary hand to outer margins on leaves 83 and 85 "For Mr. Thomas Eveigham Attorney At Law / M. Gribthorpe night Topcliffe" & "Giomatto be folle'd by you"; old vellum badly soiled, worn and torn; a sound copy; fair to good condition, complete.



¶ Thomas Phaer (also spelled Phaire, Fayre, Faer, Phayre, Phayer) (c. 1510 -1560) was an English lawyer, paediatrician, and author. He was the author of The Boke of Chyldren, published in 1545, the first book on paediatrics written in the English language. He has been called "the Father of English Pediatrics".

The present work was his influential register of legal precedents, designed to be "a comprehensive collection of documents, including, besides conveyances, bills, and answers in Chancery, letters of safe conduct and of testimony" (from Holdsworth). His intention was to create a work to popularise legal methods and knowledge of legal precidents amonst the general populace. The work was very popular and is one of the earliest English Law Books extant. ESTC [1926] No. 3345.