Commentaries on the Laws of England

Oxford is the true first - Blackstone wrote in English and the Clarendon Press printed it; there is no competing foreign or original-language edition, and the census claim of an Oxford Clarendon 1765-69 four-volume first is confirmed. The first American edition is a separate Americana point, also confirmed: Philadelphia: printed by Robert Bell, 1771-1772, four volumes octavo, reprinted line for line from the fourth Oxford edition of 1770, published by subscription. Bell's set carries a twenty-two-page list of subscribers preceding the title of vol. IV, naming individuals, libraries and booksellers - among them John Adams, John Dickinson, James Wilson, John Jay, and Thomas Marshall, who subscribed for his son John Marshall. Bell also issued a fifth volume unique to his edition, "An Interesting Appendix to Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries," and vol. I contains his prospectus addressed "To the American World."