Arabinesque-at-Law

'In 1843 there appeared a little book of sixteen small pages entitled Arabiniana, with a prefatory note initialled H.B.C. as the only indication of authorship. The book recorded some of the more remarkable dicta of Serjeant Arabin uttered in his judicial capacity at the Old Bailey in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century.

In 1911 Sir Frederick Pollock gave the book some publicity in an article in the Cornhill Magazine which was later reprinted in his Essays in the Law (1922).

But that was a long time ago. Very few copies of the book seem to exist and it has long dropped out of sight.

Yet it is too good - and too bad - for that. I have accordingly ventured to revive the book. The simplest course would have been to reprint it as it stood; but there seemed to be some advantage in trying to produce a less segmented and more cursive text than that of the original, giving greater prominence to the Arabinaics.'In this book Arabinesque-at-Law, all of Serjeant Arabin’s dicta appear, together with some others presented in the style of the author’s well known Miscellany-at-Law.

An ideal birthday or Christmas present for every lawyer (and many others besides).