Remarkable Copies

The law books below, drawn from the Pulling Collection, are remarkable for their association with prior owners who marked them in various ways. Historical owners sometimes add great value to books not only through their bookplates and inscriptions, but by annotating the margins or blank leaves of their copies, thus adding otherwise unknown information about the text, the reader, and the society around them. Of the four volumes included below, only one can be connected with a famous figure, the American jurist James Kent, while another can be connected with an interesting family. The most unusually marked copy, Gerard Tuning’s commentary on Roman law, features a mysterious image which is truly unique.