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The new Liberty Fund edition of The Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke includes selections from the four volumes of the Institutes and cases from the Reports, and several of Coke’s speeches in Parliament. Taken together, these writings delineate the origin and nature of the modern common law and indicate the profound interrelationship in the English tradition of custom, common law, authority (of both Crown and Commons), and individual liberty. Coke’s great law books and speeches are well represented on Magna Carta, citizenship, habeas corpus, freedom from wrongful search and arrest, the origins of law, judicial review, administrative law, judging, criminal law, the moral obligations of officials, the powers of King, Parliament, church, and the law, property and rights, and the profession and study of law. The Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke is the first anthology of his works ever published.

Vol. 2 of a 3 vol. set of The Selected Writings. This volume contains Coke’s Speech at Norwich, excerpts from the small treatises, and excerpts from the 4 parts of the Institutes.

"In 1606, Coke was sitting as justice in the Court of Assizes in Norwich. As was the custom, he charged the grand jury with the forms of crime it should consider in bringing indictments, but he particularly suggested the jurors should be concerned with official misconduct. The charge was recorded and published by Robert Pricket in London in 1607 under the title The Lord Coke His Speech and Charge. With a Discoverie of the Abuses and Corruption of Officers. Coke realized the charge was politically volatile, and it appears he was criticized at court, so, in the preface to his Seventh Part of the Reports, published in 1608, he repudiated the publication of the charge as misrepresenting his comments and being full of errors."

Sir Edward Coke

Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), the first judge to strike down a law, gave us modern common law by turning medieval common law inside-out. Through his resisting strong-minded kings, he bore witness for judicial independence. Coke is the earliest judge still cited routinely by practicing lawyers.