Library
Rare Books
The Rare Book Collection contains over 200,000 books, pamphlets, broadsides and other material, most printed between the mid-1400's and early 1900's.
The collection has developed from the early years of the school, and now includes all of the Library's pre-1851 holdings and most pre-1877 American imprints. Also in the collection are many Anglo-American legal materials to 1900, international law to 1911, Russian and Soviet law to 1954, and Chinese law to 1960.
Anglo-American materials are the collection's main strength, with:
- over eighty-five per cent of extant English law books printed before 1601
- an extensive collection of English language treatises and British and American laws from the 17th through 19th centuries
- British and American trial accounts (including broadsides and Old Bailey sessions papers)
- Native American tribal constitutions
- constitutions & by-laws of various American and British organizations
Extensive holdings of continental European law include:
- nearly 550 incunabula (books printed before 1500)
- over 7,200 books printed between 1501 and 1600
- a large collections of French customary law
- French royal administrative acts (Loménie de Brienne Collection)
- comparative and international law (Olivart collection)
- a nearly comprehensive collection of the works of Hugo Grotius
- broadsides and pamphlets of the Roman Republic (1848-1849)
- legal treatises, trial reports, and dissertations
Other notable holdings include:
- a large collection of Roman law, with almost 400 separate editions of Corpus juris civilis and its sections
- Canon law, with nearly 225 editions of Corpus juris canonici and 270 titles on law of the Roman Catholic Church
- a collection of Japanese manuscripts & early printed books, considered to be one of the best outside of Japan
For information on any of these materials in particular or the Library's Rare Books Collection in general, please contact:
Lesley Schoenfeld, Access Services Coordinator Phone: (617) 495-4689 Email: specialc@law.harvard.edu