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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. 3 of a 3 vol. set of The Selected Writings. This volume contains Coke’s speech in Parliament (inlcuding the Petiton of Right), a number of official acts related to Coke’s career, and other matters.

"Coke’s service in Parliament brackets his career both in time and in politics, from a devoted servant of the Crown to a leader of the opposition. There are, however, numerous constants among the issues he promoted in each sitting he attended; most important, he sought to secure the privilege of an independent Parliament, with members protected from sanction for their parliamentary speech. Throughout the parliaments of the 1620s, his concern deepened that the King could not be relied on either to allow Parliament its prerogatives of making laws for the subjects and of passing taxes or to protect subjects from arbitrary rule. Those concerns resulted in his support of increasingly powerful protests and petitions to the Crown. The capstone of these was the Petition of Right."

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.