A 1998, then 2010, Reprint of G. P. Putnam & Sons edition, New York, 1915.
The Best Available Introduction to English Legal History" In this work Professor Colby has gathered, annotated and arranged into a sequential history of English law numerous essays by Frederic William Maitland and Francis C. Montague. Each chapter includes a list of recommended readings.
These articles supplied what long had been needed for general readers and for law students-a brief but comprehensive, accurate but untechnical account of the origin and growth of English law.
Widely considered the father of legal history, Frederic William Maitland [1850-1906] was an English jurist and historian best known for the standard The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (1895), written with Sir Frederick Pollock. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge and studied at Lincoln's Inn, London.
Maitland was called to the bar in 1876, then practiced until 1884 when he became a reader in English law (1884) and professor (1888) at Cambridge. He founded the Selden Society in 1887. Hailed for his original outlook on history, his works profoundly influenced legal scholarship. An extraordinarily productive career was shortened by his death from tuberculosis at age 45.
Francis C. Montague [1858-1935] was a Professor of History at University College, London and Lecturer in Modern History, Oriel College, Oxford. He was also the author of The History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Restoration (1907) and The Elements of English Constitutional History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1910).