Special Collections Publications
The first catalogue of the Harvard Law School Library was printed in 1826, just nine years after the Library was founded. It contained 763 titles, which described 1,752 volumes. Charles Sumner, a Harvard Law School student and future Senator who moonlighted as the School librarian, issued the second catalogue, which listed 3,500 volumes, in 1834. (Students at the School served as librarians from 1830 until 1870, when the first professional librarian was appointed). After the Library had increased to over 6,000 volumes, a third edition of the catalogue was published in 1841; a fourth appeared in 1846, when aided by Professors Story and Greenleaf, the Library had again doubled in size.
No new catalogue appeared until 1909, when with more than
110,000 volumes on its shelves, the Library issued the
monumental Catalogue of the Library of the Law School of
Harvard University. These two thick quarto volumes
described only the books relating to American and English
common law, supplemented by lists of trials and peerage claims
that concluded the work. A catalogue describing the library's
holdings of foreign and comparative law was contemplated at
this time, but with the growing acceptance of the card
catalogue that had been introduced in 1902, a printed list did
not appear until 1965-67, when the twenty volume Catalog of
International Law and Relations was issued. These
catalogues were supplemented in modern times by the Annual
Legal Bibliography: A Selected List of Books and Articles
Received by the Harvard Law School Library, which appeared
in twenty-one volumes from 1961 until 1981.
Other Library publications, now out-of-print, which have been issued by the Library, include:
A Bibliography of the Writings of Roscoe Pound, 1940-1960. George A. Strait. 1960. 52 pp.
Bibliography of the Writings of the Harvard Law School Class of 1925 (1925-1959), comp. under direction of George A. Strait. 1960. 108 pp.
Index to Multilateral Treaties; ed. by Vaclav Mostecky and Francis R. Doyle. 1965. 301 pp
Soviet Legal Bibliography; ed. by Vaclav Mostecky and William E. Butler. 1965. 288 pp.
Writings on Soviet Law and Soviet International Law; comp. and ed. by William E. Butler. 1966. 165 pp.
Preliminary Union List of Materials on Chinese Law. 1967. 919 pp.
Congressional Documents: Where to Find, How to Use. 1970. 35 pp.
International Law Terms: Classification, Olivart/Annual Legal Bibliography. 1971. 49 pp.
Title-page Terminology and Selected Legal Terms: Tax Terms in English, French, German, Spanish. 1971. 17 pp.
Arabic-English Legal Glossary; comp. by Julius Szentendrey. 1973. 62 pp.
English Language Writings on Indonesian Law; by Robert N. Hornick. 1973. 40 pp.
Nigerian Legal bibliography; comp. by Oluremi Jegede. 1975. 158 pp.
A Guide to the Harvard Law Library; ed. By William J. Jackson [et al.]. 1982 - 1991. 44 pp.
Special Collections
The Special Collections Department occasionally publishes inventories and guides to its collections. For further information, please contact the Librarian for Special Collections.
The Special Collections Department publishes an occasional on-line newsletter, De Jure. To see the most recent issue, click here.
Exhibition Catalogs
The Library has published the following exhibition catalogs. For further information, please contact the Librarian for Special Collections.
The Case That Will Not Die: Sacco and Vanzetti in Retrospect; an exhibition from the Harvard Law School Library collections. Erika S. Chadbourn, 1971. 11 pp.
The Spirit of Liberty: the Learned Hand centennial exhibit at the Harvard Law School, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1972. 21 pp.
Touched with Fire: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes; a retrospective exhibit at the Harvard Law School, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1975. 25 pp.
Law and the American Revolution: A bicentennial exhibit at the Harvard Law School. 1976. 61 pp.
A Passionate Intensity: Felix Frankfurter--Public Servant, Teacher, Jurist, Colleague; a retrospective exhibit at the Harvard Law School, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1977. 26 pp.
Charles C. Burlingham: Twentieth Century Crusader; a retrospective exhibit at the Harvard Law School, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1980. 22 pp.
Felix Frankfurter, 1882-1965: An Intimate Portrait. Erika S. Chadbourn; an exhibition at the Harvard Law School, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1982. 13 pp.
The High Mountain: William Henry Hastie: Jurist, Educator, Public Servant, Humanitarian. Erika S. Chadbourn, 1984. 16 pp.
The Virgin and the Witch: An Exhibition at the Harvard Law School Library of materials from the Hyde Collection and Harvard Libraries on the celebrated trial of Elizabeth Canning, by Hugh Amory, 1987. 8 pp.
Erwin Nathaniel Griswold: Illustrious Alumnus, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1988. vvi, 17 pp.
Sherlock Holmes and the Law, by David Warrington. 1988. 4 pp.
First Impressions: Printing in Cambridge, 1639-1989, by Hugh Amory. 1989. 63 pp. (Contains section on seventeenth century legal publishing.)
That Justice Be Done: Archibald Cox's Life in the Law, by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1991. 56 pp.
Pioneers in Criminology and Criminal Justice: Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, by John Laub and David de Lorenzo. 1992. 52 pp.
History in Deed: Medieval Society and the Law in England, 1100-1600. An Exhibition of Deed and Charters from the Harvard Law School Library, by Carol Symes, 1993. 68 pp.
One Man's Books: The Library of Roscoe Pound, by David A. Ferris, 1993. 39 pp.
"Sundry Good and Needfull Ordinances": Food and Drink in the Law Library, by Mary L. Person, 1993. 63 pp.
Trials of Love: A Valentine's Day Exhibition at the Harvard Law Library, by David A. Ferris and Mary L. Person, 1994. 57 pp.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis of Louisville, Boston, and Washington: A Life Well Spent. Erika S. Chadbourn, 1994. 55 pp.
Teaching Evidence at Harvard: A Venerable Succession. Erika S. Chadbourn, 1996. 77 pp.
Other Publications
Letters from a Law Student to His Family, 1906-1908, by Austin Wakeman Scott. 1974. 68 pp.
"Documenting the American Legal Scene: the Manuscript Division of the Harvard Law School Library" in Harvard Library Bulletin, v. 30, no. 1 (1982). Pp. 55-73.
Felix Frankfurter: An Inventory of his Papers in the Harvard Law School Library. Compiled by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1982. 144 pp.
Austin Hall After a Century, by Bernice Loss, 1983. 32 pp. Lawyers Painted by Gardner Cox, by Bernice Loss. 1984. 44 pp. (Portraits of 42 lawyers painted by Cox).
William Henry Hastie: An Inventory of his Papers in the Harvard Law School Library. Compiled by Erika S. Chadbourn. 1984. 133 pp.
Henry Fielding: An Institute of the Pleas of the Crown. Edited by Hugh Amory. 1987. 30 pp.
William Henry Hastie: The High Mountain, a commemorative symposium at the Harvard Law School, November 16, 1984. (Remarks by Christopher F. Edley, Jr., Lee H. Kozol, Genna Rae McNeil, The Honorable Collins J. Seitz, J. Clay Smith, Jr., and Gilbert Ware, ed. By Erika S. Chadbourn. 1989. 26 pp.