Regtsgeleerd, Practicaal en Koopmans Handboek ([1806])

Although we have not traced any other copies of this now rare early 19th century Roman-Dutch law treatise, "print on demand" copies of a similar title, by "Joannes" van der Linden and Johannes Allart, are listed on the AbeBooks website.

From the signature on the half-title page and the initials on the top page edge, this copy is likely to have been in the ownership of the J E R de Villiers who was a former judge-president of the Orange Free State and an Acting Appeal Court judge, and who referred to it in some of his judgments. The title-page has been lost and, with it, the name of the publisher, but this copy seems to have been published in Amsterdam in 1806.

Johannes van der Linden’s “Regtsgeleerd, Practicaal en Koopmans Handboek” is referred to in R W Lee’s “Introduction to Roman-Dutch Law” (Oxford, 1931) as both one of the last authorities on “the old [Roman-Dutch] law” and the earliest on “the new law”.

When this copy was found, in an auction job-lot, the covers were badly damaged, but the contents were sufficiently valuable to justify rebinding. This has been done in brown goatskin with an abbreviation of the title gilt lettered on a spine panel, new red-and-green head and tail bands, new endpapers and a new marker ribbon. The contents of lxxiv + 588 pp include an introduction, text divided into four books, and an index.

The introduction includes a 30 pp annotated bibliography of Roman and Roman-Dutch law, including three of Van der Linden’s other titles, published in Leiden between 1794 and 1803.

In addition to the missing title-page, part of the half-title and half of the last leaf of the index have been lost and a small section of pp 101/102 has been cut out. There are a few brief marginal notes in ink, probably by the same previous owner. There are brown stains not affecting the text on some twenty early leaves, but the pages are not foxed and the text is otherwise bright and undiscoloured.

Already intrinsically rare, this book is unique in its present form.