The Life of William late Earl of Mansfield

HOLLIDAY, John. [LAW]. The Life of William late Earl of Mansfield. 4to, original marbled boards (edges considerably rubbed; some spine wear; two horizontal stripes of marbled paper off front cover), printed paper label, pp. 515, uncut + engraved frontispiece portrait by James Basiere after Vanloo & engraved portrait by J. Jones after Grimaldi facing p. [279]. London: Printed for P. Elmsly and D. Bremner, T. Cadell, Jr., T. Payne, W. Clarke and Son, J. Cooke at Oxfore, and J. Deighton, at Cambridge, 1797.

Only Edition. An internally fine, wide-margined uncut copy whose binding is not as bad as it sounds. Presentation copy, inscribed by the recipient: "Worthington [Leicestershire]. Presented to me by the Author at his Chambers, Lincoln's Inn Dec. 12th 1797. S. Shaw Junior." This long biography by a barrister of Lincoln's Inn has recieved wildly divergent reviews over the years. ODNB says it is "Holliday's most significant prose publication...a well-researched biography of his friend and patron William Murray, the controversial judge and eminent politician." American historian and university professor Arthur Lyon Cross cites John Campbell, Lord Chief Justice (1779-1861): "Lord Campbell in his [Lives of the] Chief Justices [1851] characterizes Holliday's work as: 'the worst specimen of biography in any language,' yet it is valuable for its copious quotations and other contemporary matter, which Campbell himself freely uses, not always with adequate acknowledgement."-Arthur Lyon Cross, in, Michigan Law Review, vol. XX, 1921-1922, p. 25, note 4 (et seq). Well represented in institutions, very scarce in the market-place, especially so in original condition, internally fine.