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A LIST OF ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS'
By JOHN H. WIGmoRE
1. And what, pray, is a 'legal' novel? For there have surely
not been many illegal novels. The illegalities in which the great
novelists have figured have commonly been not suits for libels
committed by them, but gallant struggles (like those of Charles
Reade) to protect their copyrights against pirates, or to vindicate
themselves (like poor Cooper) against envenomed reviewers.
A 'legal' novel, as here meant, will be simply a novel in which
a lawyer, most of all, ought to be interested, because the principles
or the profession of the law form a main part of the author's theme.
As for any definition or further subdividing of the 'legal'
novel, it is perhaps unprofitable and certainly difficult, being decidedly
open to difference of taste and opinion. Nevertheless, for those
who care to pick and choose, there may be noted, in the rough,
four kinds:
(A) Novels in which some trial scene is described-perhaps
including a skilful cross-examination;
(B) Novels in which the typical traits of a lawyer or judge,
or the ways of professional life, are portrayed;
(C) Novels in which the methods of law in the prosecution
and punishment of crime are delineated; and
(D) Novels in which some point of law, affecting the rights
or the conduct of the personages, enters into the plot.
In the following list these sorts are indicated by the letters
A, B, C, D. But let it be understood that such an indication is
suggestive only; for the class of a particular novel is often a matter
for difference of opinion. Moreover, the list will include only those
in which one of these circumstances is a more or less prominent
feature.
2. But the list need not try to include all such works of
fiction-good, bad, or indifferent. Where shall the line be drawn?
On the one hand, it must not exclude all but the works of the great
masters, from Fielding and Dickens to Stevenson and Howells.
Yet it may properly be confined to what may be called literature, i. e.,
1. This article is a corrected reprint of an article originally appearing
in this REVIEW in April, 1908 (vol. II, p. 574). Notice is hereby given that
neither this article nor the list of novels which follow may be reprinted in
any other periodical without permission of ILLINOis LAW REVIEW.
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
novels in which character is delineated by a writer of whom style
may be predicated. A few notable novels, indeed, must be included
to which many would not concede these qualities-for example,
"Mr. Meeson's Will"; and a few must be excluded, because, though
possibly within that definition, they belong to a class whose influence
is bad-such as the Raffles stories. It is obvious, too, that the
ordinary detective story-even Mr. Julian Hawthorne's and Mrs.
Green's--does not fulfill the canons, while Mr. Aldrich's "Stillwater
Tragedy," Sir Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes," and M.
Gaboriau's "Monsieur Lecocq" do cross the line safely.
3. But, after all, what is served by such a list? Does a
lawyer go to a novel to learn his law? And would he even recommend
the layman to look into works of fiction for forming correct
notions of the ways of the law? Do not even the greatest of the
'legal' novels portray rather the shortcomings and abuses of justice?
And will not their perusal by the layman tend rather to fix in his
mind (perhaps already prejudiced) a picture distorted and untrue?
And even in the commonplace legal incidents of novels, are there
not examples galore of the most impossible and unlegal doings?
Does not the judge sometimes, in a novel, dictatorially order the
jury to declare a defendant guilty of murder? Or the plaintiff to
pay damages when a verdict in a civil case is found for the defendant?
Or the sheriff to sell off the debtor's property before action
is begun-et alia enormia? In short, why encourage the layman
to read a 'legal' novel?
Well, let us repeat, we are not making a list for laymen. We
have in mind rather the novel in which the lawyer himself is, or
ought to be, most interested. And from this point of view we can
think of several reasons why such a list is worth the labor. For it
is certain that the lawyer must, like other men, for his pastime and
mental ease, abandon himself now and then to the thrall of fiction.
He will not read all the novels-even all the good ones; he will
probably not read many. He must select. Let him, then, select
those which will mean something to him as a lawyer, will have a
special interest for one of that elect profession with all its traditions,
its memories, its secrets of the craft. And thus, since he Mut
select, he will want to select those which as a lawyer he cannot
afford to ignore.
4. In the first place, there are certain episodes or types o
character in professional life whose descriptions by famous novelists
have become classical in literature, such, as Sergeant Buzfuz and
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
the action of Bardell v. Pickuick in the "Pickwick Papers," the
chancery suit in "Bleak House," Effie Dean's trial in "The Heart
of Midlothian." With these every lawyer must be acquainted.
This is not merely because of his general duty as a cultivated man,
but because of his special professional duty to be familiar with
those features of his profession which have been taken up into
general thought and literature. What lawyer can go through life
unfamiliar with such classical gifts to the world as the character of
Advocate Pleydell in "Guy Mannering," of Attorney Tulkinghorn
in "Bleak House," of Magistrate Popinot in "Cesar Birotteau," and
"A Commission in Lunacy," of Attorney Godeschal's office in "A
Start in Life"? What lawyer can neglect to tread the paths of his
professional progenitors' pursuits in "Copperfield" and "Pendennis"
and "Redgauntlet" and "The Lesser Bourgeoisie?" Or to be ignorant
of the never-fading scenes in "The Scarlet Letter" and "Les
Miserables"-the perpetual possession of humanity? Or to know
Smith's Leading Cases while unfamiliar with Pebblesv. Planestones
and Jarndycev. Jarudyce?
And there are many romances, not yet exalted into classical
niches, which claim us in every other respect-the thrilling trial
scenes in Hale's "Philip Nolan's Friends," in Reade's "Griffith
Gaunt," in Harte's "Gabriel Conroy," in Blackmore's "Lorna
Doone," in Holland's "Seven-oaks," in Foote's "John Bodewin's
Testimony," in Gray's "Silence of Dean Maitland." And shall
"Pudd'nhead Wilson" be forgot? Scott and Dickens are of course
pre-eminently the lawyer's novelists.2
But no lawyer can fail to
believe that certain others wrote their books especially for him
(books not classical, nor marked perhaps by any single undying
episodes). We are here thinking of the lawyers' careers in Trollope's
"Orley Farm," in Ford's "Peter Stirling" (said to reflect a
career like that of ex-President Cleveland), and in Warren's "Ten
Thousand a Year" (the book for lawyers by a lawyer) ; the sheriff's
life in Alice French's (Octave Thanet) stories, particularly "The
Missionary Sheriff"; the lawyers and the law that permeate the
books of Mary Murfree ("Charles Craddock," herself the daughter
of a lawyer and legal author), of Charles Reade, of Anthony Trollope,
of Stanley Weyman. And who cannot want to peruse, woven
2. This is the best place to note that their legal lore has been once for
all collected and entertainingly (as well as learnedly) described by Judge
John Marshall Gest of Philadelphia, in his two essays, "The Law and
Lawyers of Charles Dickens" and "The Law and Lawyers of Sir Walter
Scott," reprinted from the American Law Register, vols. 53 and 54 (1905,
1906) with other similar essays in a volume entitled "The Lawyer in Literature"
(Boston, 1913).
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
into romance in Eggleston's "The Graysons," Abraham Lincoln's
oft-told maneuvre with the almanac,3
the tale of a liar exposed, or
Jeffreys' brutal trial of Lady Lisle, the friend of the fugitives, in
Conan Doyle's "Micah Clarke"?
5. Then, again, there are the greatmovements of legal progress
which have been aided or reflected in the novelist's works. It is
one thing to know that imprisonment for debt has been abolished;
or to con a catalogue of the reforms of the nineteenth century in
the "Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History"; or to read
the lives of Eldon, Denman, Brougham, or Field. But it is another,
and a necessary thing, to know the spirit of those times-to realize
the operation of the old rules now gone-to feel their meaning in
human life and to appreciate the bitter conflicts and their lessons
for today.' This deepest sense of their reality we shall get only in
the novels.
Two great figures stand out as leaders-Charles Dickens and
Charles Reade. No man can truly apportion the meed of influence
between them and the lawyer-legislators-Mackintosh, Romilly,
Brougham, Denman, Campbell. But it is certain that the former
sunned and watered what the latter sowed and reaped. We must
go to "Bleak House" to learn the ieal meaning of chancery's delays
-to "Oliver Twist" to see the actual system of police and petty
justice in London-to "Pickwick Papers" to appreciate the technicalities
of civil justice. Was jail-reform more aided by Bentham's
essays or by Charles Reade's "Never Too Late to Mend" ?4 How
soon would the right to imprison sane people in the private lunatic
asylums have been abolished if "Hard Cash" had not been written?'
That great author's life, in fact, was one long knighterrantry
again the dragons and giants of the times.
But even when we leave these eminent leaders we find the
institutional abuses of contemporary life pictured in novels here
and there with a realism which makes them almost appendices to
3. It is proper here to keep on helping to kill the slander, long ago
started, and chiefly given currency in Lamon's Life, that Lincoln used a
spurious almanac; the slander has been amply refuted by a competent witness,
Mr.- James L. King, e.x rel, Judge Bergen, in the North Amercan
Review, 1898, vol. 166, p. 186; and the evidence is fully collected in Mr. John
T. Richards' "Lincoln as a Lawyer" (New York, 1916).
4. Reade himself said that to exaggerate the description of the abuses
would be harder than "to write a libel on hell."
We cannot credit "Bleak House" with influencing the first important
reforms in chancery, for it was printed at the very moment of enacting
them, in 1852. In Mr. Gest's phrase, "Dickens did not kill the chancery
snake, but only jumped on it after it was dead." But was it then quite dead?
5. This book's circulation was in its day exceeded only by "Uncle Tom's
Cabin."
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
the law books. Henry Kingsley's :'Austin Elliot" is said to have
inspired a stringent legislation against duelling. Balzac's "Cesar
Birotteau" exposes the misery and chicanery of bankruptcy proceedings.
Cooper's "Ways of the Hour" tried trial by jury on its
merits. Besant's "Chaplain of the Fleet" makes us wonder how
the miseries of the old Fleet debtors' prison could have been allowed
to exist as long as they did. No man who has not read Besant's
"The Orange Girl" can appreciate the terrible significance of the
punishment of the pillory. Cooper's "Satanstoe" and "Chainbearer"
(and "The Redskins" belongs also to the series) reflect the system
of land-tenure in early New York and that "anti-rent" agitation
which was so intense a problem in those days that we wonder it
could ever have been forgotten. The system of transporting convicts
to Botany Bay has been a favorite theme; in the best of these
stories, though not ranked among the classics, are John Boyle
O'Reilly's "Moondyne," Rolf Boldrewod's Australian books, and
Becke's and Jeffrey's "A First Fleet Family." Can a lawyer know
his profession and its past without knowing these things, and the
parts that these many legal institutions have played in the life of the
community?
Perhaps here belong, too, many novels which depict a special
problem or institution of law, not having in mind its abuses or reforms,
but full of instruction and reflection for the lawyer, or
notable as classics of romance-"Felix Holt," for example, with a
plot turning on a base fee in land; "Paul Clifford," with its terrible
problem for the judge; "Eugene Aram," an elaborated transcript
of a notable English murder trial.
Here, too, are to be noted the interesting pictures of alien systems
of justice-Caine's "The Deemster," Erckmann-Chatrian's
"Polish Jew" (said to be the foundation of Irving's play, "The
Bells"), Franzos' Austrian stories, Jokai's Hungarian stories, Crawford's
for Italy, Tolstoi's superb "Resurrection," and, of course,
Balzac, Gaboriau, Sue and Dumas for France, and Scott for the
ancient modes of trial.
6. And again, there are the novels which depict history for us
-that is, the scenes in legal annals which general history has made
famous. Here, of course, the magic of Scott has done most. The
Vehmgericht in "Anne of Geierstein"-the cruel justice of Louis
XI in "Quentin Durward"-the ancient trial by battle in "Ivanhoe"
6. Doubtless these could be traced out in the work of Mr. Ernest A.
Baker, "History, in Fiction: a Guide to the Best Historical Romances, Sagas,
Novels, and Tales" (1908), which contains brief annotations to the titles.
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
-and the trial by ordeal in "The Fair Maid of Perth"-are there
not many who will never know (nor need to know) more of these
things than are chronicled by the great romancer? And the unspeakable
Jeffrey. All the serious rehabilitations of modem historians
(including Mr. Zane) will not avail to lighten the picture
which the novelists have drawn of his trials; for those have supplied
one of the favorite topics-at London, in "Peveril of the Peak"
and in "Lorna Doone," and on the circuit of the Bloody Assizes,
in Besant's "For Faith and Freedom" and in Conan Doyle's "Micah
Clarke" (this surely must begin to 'beplaced among our classics;
it is not too soon). And in "Kidnapped" Stevenson has given us
the very pages from Howell's State Trials. "Barnaby Rudge," too,
almost echoes the witnesses in Lord Gordon's trial for the riot, and
we may study Lord Mansfield here. Going further afield we live
over again the times of the ill-fated Roman Republic in "Rienzi,"
and observe the tragic fate of the DeWitts in Dumas' "Black Tulip."
There is in fact hardly an end to the line of boundary where history
and law unite in the pages of the novelist.
And who cannot feel that this lore is meant for him as a
lawyer? What man can say that he is a member of our profession
and not want to be familiar with these things? And so, shall there
not be a list of "legal" novels?
7. But there is a higher standpoint yet. For the novel-the
true work of fiction-is a catalogue of life's characters. And the
lawyer must know human nature. He must deal understandingly
with its types, its motives. These he cannot find-all of themclose
around him; life is not long enough, the range is not broad
enough for him to learn them by personal experience 'before he
needs to use them. For this learning, then, he must go to fiction,
which is the gallery of life's portraits. When Balzac's great design
dawned on him, to form a complete series of characters and motives,
he conceived his novels as conveying just such learning. He even
enumerated the total number of characters. His task was, he says: 7
"To paint the three or four thousand salient figures of an epochfor
that is about the number of types presented by the generation of
which this human comedy is the contemporary and the exponent. This
number of figures, of characters, this multitude of portraits, needed
frames. Out of this necessarily grew the classification of my work
into Scenes. Under these heads I have classed all those studies of
manners and morals which form the general history of Society. * * *
If the meaning of my work is understood, my readers will see that I
7. Preface of 184--"One of the world's great prefaces," Bruneti~re
called it.
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
give to the recurring events of daily life (secret or manifest), and
to the actions of individuals, with their hidden springs and motives, as
much importance as the historian bestows on the public life of a
nation."
In this view the work of the novelist is to provide a museum of
human characters, traits and motives-just as we might go to a
museum of zoblogy to observe an animal which we desired to understand
but had never yet seen alive; this was Balzac's idea:
"There have always been, and always will be, social species, just as
there are zoological species. If Buffon achieved a great work when he
put together in one book the whole scheme of zoology, is there not a
work of the same kind to be done for Society? * * * There are
as many different men as there are species in zoology. The differences
between a soldier, a workman, a merchant, a sailor, a poet, a beggar,
a priest, though more difficult to decipher, are at least as marked as
those which separate the wolf, the lion, the ass, the crow, the shark,
the seal, the lamb and so on."
And so the lawyer, whose highest problems call for a perfect
understanding of human character and a skilful use of this knowledge,
must ever expect to seek in fiction as in an encyclopedia, that
learning which he cannot hope to compass in his own limited experience
of the humans whom chance enables him to observe at close
range.
This learning has been sought, possessed, and valued by
many great advocates. Perhaps they have seldom openly inculcated
its value. But we find at hand one singularly direct exposition of
this theme, which must here be quoted :8
Read the literature of the lawyers. Read the lives of those great
lawyers and judges of England. Read the literature of human nature.
The lawyers can gain many points by reading.
To my mind Balzac is the greatest judge of human nature after
Shakespeare. I think I learned more of human nature (outside of my
own experience) from Balzac than I have from any other author except
Shakespeare. I recall especially "Eug~nie Grandet," the history
of a miser. I have read that book two or three times, and this is how
it profited me afterwards. I was retained in a very serious case of
fraud. I studied the party on the other side. I made up my mind that
if ever there was a miser out of the pages of literature, that was the
man, and that Grandet was his literary father-in-law. I studied
"Eug~nie Grandet" again, and then I attacked that opponent. It was
an eight years' task. But the image of Grandet helped me to hound
that man so that at the end of eight years there was not anything left
8. Address of Mr. Frank J. Loesch, President of the Chicago Bar Association,
in the Legal Tactics Series, at Northwestern University Law School,
1905; published in the ILINoIs LAW REVIEw, 1907, vol. I, pp. 455, 465,
entitled, "The Acquisition and Retention of a Clientage."
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
but his hide. The greatest admirer of the work I did is that man's
own lawyer; but he will not give me credit for having any legal acumen.
He maintains that I knew all the facts beforehand. Yet the truth of
the matter was that I did not; I drew the bill before I had the facts.
I merely judged the man's character from what I had read of
"Eug~nie Grandet." That experience was to me a life lesson.9
Let me allude also to another case, one that nearly broke me down
with the mental and physical strain. I had bought every printed trial
I could find on that particular subject. I had a year to prepare for the
actual trial of the case. There were very eminent lawyers on the other
side. I will not mention names, for the parties are living. But I did
not receive from all these books as much light as I did from a certain
classical novel, one that characterized exactly the plaintiff's object and
put that party in the lime-light. With that aid I was able to follow all
the ins and outs of his maneuvers, and finally to win the case. It was a
work of fiction that guided me to a right solution of that person's character,
and a knowledge of his character that was essential to victory.
Still another lesson I now recall which I learned from reading-a
lesson I will never forget. It related to a gentleman by the name of
Gil Blas. Gil had various and sundry adventures, and among others he
was made secretary to the Archbishop of Toledo. The Archbishop said
to him one day: "Gil, I look upon you as a very likely young man, I
like your intelligence and acumen. Now I am getting old. I have to
preach once a month. Make it your duty to let me know when you see
any failing signs in my mental powers. I will trust you as a friend to
tell me about it." So Gil noted the character of the sermon the next
month. Then he heard the ensuing sermon; and he thought the Archbishop
showed signs of age and senility. At the third sermon he was
more satisfied of this, and the fourth was shockingly significant. He
complimented the Archbishop on the first sermon, and spoke fairly of
the second, but of the others he did not. The Archbishop asked, "Now,
Gil, what is the truth ?" Gil said: "Your eminence, your mental powers
are failing rapidly." "Gil," responded the Archbishop, "I find that I
am mistaken in your acumen. The treasurer will pay you and you will
leave the house." I have never forgotten the moral of that story.
Such incidents of literature add to your knowledge.
And so the best literature-drama or poetry, philosophy or
fiction-must always be an arsenal for the lawyer. This, to be sure,
is a larger matter than our "legal" novels; yet it includes the best
of them.
8. But there is one more thing worth lingering over, before
we come to our list itself, and that is the sources of the information
and skill of our "legal" novelists. Where did they learn their legal
9. Mr. W. K. Lowrey, of the Chicago Bar, related to the writer an
analogous case, in which he solved the mystery of a fraudulent bankruptcy
on calling to mind the bookkeeping methods which figure in Freytag's "Debit
and Credit."
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
fore? How could they find and use the materials for their legal
scenes and characters?
This, of course, has varied greatly with the individual methods
of work. Yet, on the whole, it is possible to distinguish certain
general differences. There are, broadly, three groups. There are
the novelists who were themselves lawyers, or were trained for the
law. There are also a few who learned much of it by personal
experience in litigation of their own. And then there are thosethe
most part-who prepared for the legal episodes by special
research.
To the first belong, of course, in prime rank, Fielding, Scott,
Balzac and Dickens. A long life in the law, as barristers and as
magistrates, gave to Fielding and to Scott the material of the law
as a second nature.10
Balzac was destined and trained for it; only
at the last moment could he evade his family's ambitions to chain
him for life to the lawyer's desk. Dickens, as an attorney's clerk
and a court reporter, had all the direct experience which a lawyer's
life gives, and almost all the training which a lawyer was then expected
to have. There are, too, among today's contemporaries,
notable like instances-Robert Grant, Anthony Hope Hawkins,
Frederic J. Stimson; though it is odd that most of these avoid the
legal life in their fiction. Arthur Train, however, with the vantage
point of a District Attorney's office, may well be deemed our modern
Fielding, now that he has broadened his canvas.
In the second group are pre-eminent Cooper and Reade. During
the latter half of their lives, it would seem that not a year
passed, for either, without a lawsuit pending; and thus they came
to observe the lawyer within his native lair. Reade, indeed, did
enter at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar; but it does not
appear that he studied or worked or ever held a brief, or did more
than eat the perfunctory dinners; and his most intense interest in
the law was not shown until after he had himself brought a suit to
rescue a young friend from an asylum. His law he must have
learned mostly from the controversies of reform which he took up
and from his own constant lawsuits and the numerous lawyers
retained by him. These latter, indeed he sampled variously and
judged freely and dictatorially. Listen to this passage from a
10. Scott, of course, like all the great masters, also made special studies
for the accuracy of individual incidents, particularly the historical ones. His
appendix-notes exhibit many of these instances. Mr. Gest has pointed out
numerous additional ones; his comparison of Scott's "Betrothed" and Tennyson's
"Enoch Arden" shows how desirable such accuracy may become.
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS 35
letter:" "My successes have been hardly won. In this case I had
to dismiss Jessel for incapacity, Ballantine for colloquy with defendant's
attorney, Teesdale because of his chief clerk's incapacity,
and Rickerd's managing clerk." The client who could dismiss
Jessel and Ballantine must indeed have been self-confident in his
own legal acumen. But Charles Reade, after all, was himself "the
people's lawyer," a never-tiring advocate for humanity. Cooper,
too, seems to have engaged in his lawsuits largely as a matter of
principle-to defend the rights of authors and the liberty of thought.
This famous romancer, much misunderstood and disliked in his own
generation (first by our alien kin across seas, and then by his own
neighbors and community), found himself from 1837 onwards in
almost continuous litigation; and it is noticeable that the majority
of his novels with legal episodes and characters date in that period.
Himself without legal training, he was by nature (like Charles
Reade) an uncompromising fighter for his rights-a striking example
of the type of man whom Ihering's "Struggle for Rights"
delights to honor. He had usually an unpopular cause, and he was
an unpopular man; but he accomplished the remarkable feat, which
the greatest of lawyers might envy, of succeeding with judge and
jury when he argued his own cause.12
No such record can
probably be found in history. It is no wonder that he was entitled
to weave into his novels, with every claim of verisimilitude, whatever
he pleased of legal episode and character.
In the third group belong, naturally, most of the novelists who
have dealt with phases of the law. Not having the lawyer's profession
or a plentiful experience of lawsuits as their source of
information, they have been obliged to obtain -by special study the
sources adapted to their immediate purpose. Many, of course, have
failed, for lack of thoroughness; and the successes are due (where
traceable) to the persistent resolve of accuracy in research-the
directness of touch with the material of life. Charles Reade, to be
sure, belongs in this group also, for perhaps no great realist of
contemporary life (except Balzac) made so systematic a search for
11. Memoirs, by C. L. and C. Reade (1887), p. 384.
12. "In these trials he was assisted by his nephew, Richard Cooper, who
was his regular counsel. But, outside of him, in the civil suits, he had very
rarely any help, and in most of them he argued his own cause. Wherever
he appeared in person, he seems to have come off uniformly victorious. Nor
were his victories won over inferior opponents......The men against
whom Cooper was pitted stood in the very front rank of their profession;
they were leaders of the bar in the greatest state in the Union." (Lounsbury's
Cooper, 1883, p. 182). The most remarkable instance was his complete
victory in the suit involving the correctness of his account of the
Battle of Lake Erie.
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
materials of life pictures-the objective truth of his character facts.
His system of newspaper clippings and scrap-books is well known.1 3
His preliminary search of Parliamentary documents and other verified
data made him an insuperable opponent in his many controversies
over contemporary law and fact. Here is an example of
his reply to a sneering reviewer :
1 4
"Can any man offer a fairer test of a book's veracity than I did?
I said, in my preface to 'Hard Cash,' that the whole thing rested on a
mass of legal evidence-bluebooks, pamphlets, newspapers, private letters,
diaries of alleged lunatics, reports of tried cases. I offered, in
print, to show these, at my own house, to any anonymous writer who
might care to profit by my labor-the labor of Hercules. * * * How
many, do you suppose, accepted this infallible test of mendacity or veracity
in my book? Not one!"
But, naturally, the methods differed with the individual. It
would be interesting to trace out the methods of the other great
delineators of legal episodes. George Eliot's success, in what must
have been purely a tour de force, is well known, and has earned
approval from no less than Sir Frederick Pollock, in his history of
The Land Laws :15
"The curious kind of estate created by the conveyance in fee simple
of a tenant in tail in possession, without the concurrence of the owners
of estates preceding his own, is called a base fee. Though uncommon,
it is not unknown in practice; and it has been used by George Eliot; in
'Felix Holt,' with great effect and with perfect correctness, as part of
the machinery of the plot; insomuch that conveyancers reading the
novel have been known to comment seriously, as if the thing had happened
to one of their own clients, that the parties did not take better
advice."
But it is Robert Louis Stevenson-that beautiful soul of authorship--who
has furnished us perhaps the most interesting instance
of conscientious and painstaking preparation of the correct scenery
of a legal drama to which the author adds the magic spirit of life
and action. No one ever read "Kidnapped" and its sequel, "David
Balfour," with a cool thought as to the construction of its plot, or
the historic foundation; but the story was in fact woven out of a
13. "At least one hour a day was expended in making cuttings from
newspapers and magazines for his 'invaluable' note-book, as he termed them.
• . . The dread of missing some good thing caused him to waste at least
three hundred hours per annum on scissors-and-paste work; so that eventually,
when he came to catalogue and classify all this congeries of information,
the headings alone covered twelve pages of printed matter in double columns"
(Memoirs, p. 337).
14. Readiana, "A Terrible Temptation," p. 271 (reply to the Toronto
Globe).
15. 2d ed., p. 110.
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS 37
recorded trial, used for the purpose.1
Mrs. Stevenson thus tells
of its creation :17
"I concluded to try and write it myself (i. e., a play called "The
Hanging Judge"). As I wanted a trial scene in the Old Bailey, I chose
the period of 1700 for my purpose; but being shamefully ignorant of my
subject, and my husband confessing to little more knowledge than I possessed,
a London bookseller was commissioned to send us everything he
could procure bearing on Old Bailey trials. A great package came in
response to our order, and very soon we were both absorbed-not so
much in the trials as in following the brilliant career of a MT. Garrow,
who appeared as counsel in many of the cases. We sent for more
books, and yet more, still intent on Mr. Garrow, whose subtle crossexamination
of witnesses, and masterly, if sometimes startling, methods
of arriving at the truth, seemed more thrilling to us than any novel.
Occasionally other trials than those of the Old Bailey would be included
in the package of books we received from London; among thesemy
husband found and read with avidity. 'The Trial of James Stewart
in Ancharn in Duror of Appin, for the Murder of Colin Campbell, of
Glenure, Esq., Factor for his Majesty on the forfeited estate of Ardshiel.'
My husband was always interested in this period of his country's
history, and had already the intention of writing a story that
should turn on the Appin murder. The tale was to be of a boy, David
Balfour, supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should
travel in Scotland as though it were a foreign country, meeting with
various adventures and misadventures by the way. From the trial of
James Stewart my husband gleaned much valuable material for his
novel, the most important being the character of Alan Breck. Aside
from having described him as 'smallish in stature,' my husband seems
to have taken Alan Breck's personal appearance, even to his 'clothing,
from the book. * * * Some time after the publication of 'Kidnapped'
we stopped for a short time in the Appin country, where we
were surprised and interested to discover that the feeling concerning
the murder of Glenure (the 'Red Fox,' also called 'Colin Ray') was
almost as keen as though the tragedy had taken place the day before.
For several years my husband received letters of expostulation or commendation
from members of the Campbell and Stewart clans."
Even more interesting was Stevenson's legal research into the
materials for "Weir of Hermiston,"-that last and unfinished work,
of which he wrote once, "Mind you, I expect it to be my masterpiece."
Under the name of "The Justice Clerk" (as originally
selected), it was to depict the great Hanging Judge, confronted at
the last with the stem ordeal of sentencing to death his own sona
situation already in literature in Bulwer's "Paul Clifford." The
Lord Justice Clerk was the Scottish name for the head of the crim-
16. The trial mentioned by Mrs. Stevenson was held in 1752, and may
be found in 19 Howell's State Trials, pp. 1-262.
17. Preface to "Kidnapped," Biographical Edition (Scribner's, 1905).
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
inal justiciary; and Stevenson took every pains to prepare accurately
the law of his case. Sidney Colvin thus reports a part of those
efforts :'s
"In a letter of Stevenson's to Mr. Baxter, of October, 1892, I find
him asking for materials in terms which seem to indicate that he knew
this (legal problem) quite well: 'I wish Pitcairn's Criminal Trials,
quam primum. Also an absolutely correct text of the Scots' judiciary
oath. Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish
as full a report as possible of a Scot's murder trial between 1790-1820.
Understand, the fullest possible. Is there any book which would guide
me to the following facts: The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally
on circuit. Certain evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to
the Justice-Clerk's own son. Of course in the next trial the JusticeClerk
is excluded, and the case is called before the Lord Justice-General.
Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would
not suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?' -The point
was referred to a quondam fellow-member with Stevenson of the Edinburgh
Speculative Society, Mr. Graham Murray, the present SolicitorGeneral
for Scotland, whose reply was to the effect that there would
be no difficulty in making the new trial take place at the circuit town;
that it would have to be held there in the spring or autumn, before two
Lords of Justiciary; and that the Lord Justice-General would have
nothing to do with it, this title being at the date in question only a
nominal one held by a layman (which is no longer the case). On this,
Stevenson writes: 'Graham Murray's note re the venue was highly
satisfactory, and did me all the good in the world.'"
And so, in the hands of a master, the law of a legal novel may
after all be made as true to reality as when the scribe is of the
vocation of law.
9. And now, at last, for our list. As here offered, it is of composite
workmanship, and has grown with the accretions of ten years.
It began in a manuscript list of some fifty titles, prepared by the
present writer in 1898.19 This was then enlarged to about one
hundred titles for publication in The Brief;20
and that list was then
reprinted in The Library Journal2
l and in The Athena'um Monthly
Bulletin.2 2
To improve it effectively, both in the earlier classics and
in the recent fiction, some co-operative effort became necessary.
.Accordingly, committees of my students were appointed, who kindly
18. Editorial Note to "Weir of Hermiston," Biographical Edition.
19. Apparently the pioneer list was that of Professor Wambaugh, published
in the Iowa University Law Bulletin in 1889. A few titles in that, not
found in the present writer's original list, were thankfully appropriated.
20. Vol. II, No. 2, p. 124 (New York, January, 1900).
21. February, 1901.
22. Westfield, Mass., May, 1901.
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
undertook to examine the works of one hundred selected novelists
of standing.
The result of these efforts, together with the suggestions of
other readers, was to increase the list by about two hundred and
seventy-five titles, making some three hundred and seventy-five in
all. This list was published in the ILLINOIS LAW REvIEW for April,
1908 (Vol. II, p. 574). That number of the REVIEW, and the
reprint of the list, has long since been exhausted. To enlarge the
list thoroughly, so as to cover the last decade, is impracticable.
But a demand exists for a good reading list of standard Legal
Novels. Hence the present list of One Hundred Legal Novels,
selected from the former list. Two or three over the hundred are
put in for good measure.
It must be added that, in making the selection, the pure detective
story, however good, has been omitted; the last decade alone has
seen this type of fiction multiplied, until now it forms a genre of
its own.
A LIST OF ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey:
Stillwater Tragedy. (C)
Allen, Grant:
Miss Cayley's Adventures.
(A,D)
de Balzac, HonorS:
C~sar Birotteau. (D)
Cousin Pons. (B,D)
Pare Goriot. (D)
Lucien de Rubempr& (A,C)
Lesser Bourgeoisie. (B,D)
Gobseck. (D)
Colonel Chabert. (B)
Commission in Lunacy. (A,B)
Last Incarnation of Vautrim.
(C)
Start in Life. (B)
Marriage Contract. (D)
Becke, Louis, and Jeffrey, Walter:
First Fleet Family. (C)
Besant, Walter:
St. Katherine's by the Tower.
(A,B,C)
For Faith and Freedom. (A,B)
Orange Girl. (A,B,C)
Besant, Walter, and Rice, Jas.:
Chaplain of the Fleet (Prison).
(C,D)
Blackinore, R. D.:
Lorna Doone. (A)
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward:
Eugene Aram. (A,C)
Paul Clifford. (A,C)
Burnett, Frances Hodgson:
DeWilloughby Claim. (D)
Caine, Hall:
Deemster. (CB)
Law and the Lady (A,D)
Collins, Wilkie:
Cooper, James Fenimore:
Ways of the Hour. (A,B,C)
Redskins. (B,CD)
Satanstoe. (D)
Chainbearer. (D)
Cox, E. M.:
The Achievements of John
Caruthers. (C)
Craddock, Chas. Egbert (Mary
Murfree) :
Prophet of the Great Smoky
Mountain.. (C)
Crockett, Samuel R.:
The Gray Mare. (A,C)
Crawford,Francis Marion:
Sant'Ilario. (CD)
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17 ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW
Tickens, Charles:
Barnaby Rudge. (C)
Bleak House. (A,B)
Old Curiosity Shop. (AB)
Oliver Twist. (A,C)
Pickwick Papers. (A,B)
Tale o , Two Cities. (A,B)
Doyle, Arthur Conan:
Micah Clarke. (A)
Dumas, Alexandre:
Black Tulip. (C)
Count of Monte Cristo.
(A,C,D)
Marguerite .'e Valois. (A,C)
Twenty Years After, Part II.
(A)
Eggleston, Edward:
Mystery of Metropolisville.
(A,B,C)
Graysons. (A)
Eliot, George:
Adam Bede. (A)
Felix Holt. (A,B,D)
Erckman, E., and Chatrian,A.:
Polish Jew. (A)
Franzos, Karl Emil:
The Chief Justice. (A,B)
Fielding,Henry:
Jonathan Wild. (C)
Tom Jones. (C)
Fletcher,J. V.:
Middle Temple Murder. (B,D)
Foote, Mary Hallock:
John Bodewin's Testimony. (A)
Ford, Paul Leicester:
Honorable Peter Stirling. (B)
Frederic,Harold:
Damnation of Theron Ware.
(B)
French, Alice (Octave Thanet):
Missionary Sheriff. (CD)
We All. (B,CD)
Gaboriau,Emile:
File No. 113. (C)
Monsieur Lecocq. (C)
Goldsmith, Oliver:
Vicar of Wakefield. (C)
Gould, S. Baring:
Broom Squire. (A,B,D)
Grant, Charles:
Stories of Naples and the
Camorra. (C)
Grant, Robert:
Law Breakers. (D)
Eye for an Eye. (AB,D)
Grey (or Gray), Maxwell:
Silence of Dean Maitland.
(A,D)
Haggard,H. Rider:
Mr. Meeson's Will. (A,B,D)
Hale, Edward Everett:
Philip Nolan's Friends. (A)
Harte, Francis Bret:
Gabriel Conroy. (A)
Heiress of Red Dog. (A,B,D)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel:
Scarlet Letter. (C)
Herrick, Robert:
The Common Lot. (A)
Hill, Frederick Trevor:
Tales Out of Court. (AB)
Holland, Josiah Gilbert:
Sevenoaks. (A,D)
Howells, William Dean:
Modern Instance. (A,D)
Hugo, Victor:
Les Misrables. (A,C,D)
Ninety-three. (C)
M&an Who Laughed. (C)
James, George P. R.:
Morley Ernstein. (B,C)
Kingsley, Henry:
Austin Elliot. (A,D)
La Rarn6, Louise de (Ouida):
Under Two Flags. (A)
LeSage, Alain R.:
Gil Blas. (C)
Mitchell, S. Weir:
Constance Trescott. (A,B,C)
O'Reilly, John Boyle:
Moondyne. (C)
Page, Thomas Nelson:
Red Rock. (D)
Parker, Gilbert:
Right of Way. (A)
Read, Opie:
Tennessee Judge. (B)
Jucklins. (A,B)
Reade, Charles:
Griffith Gaunt. (A)
Never Too Late to Mend.
(B,C)
Hard Cash. (A,B,C)
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ONE HUNDRED LEGAL NOVELS
Scott, Walter:
Anne of Geierstein. (A,C)
Fortunes of Nigel. (CD)
Guy Mannering. (AB,CD)
Heart of Midlothian. (A,B,D)
Fair Maid of Perth. (A)
Antiquary. (B,D)
Ivanhoe. (A)
Peveril of the Peak. (A)
Quentin Durward. (CD)
Redgauntlet. (B,D)
Rob Roy. (B,C)
Senkiewicz, Henryk:
Comedy of Errors. (A)
Stevenson, Robert Louis:
Kidnapped; with its sequel,
David Balfour (B,C)
Weir of Hermiston. (Br)
Stimson, Frederick J.:
Residuary Legatee. (D)
Stockton, Frank R.:
Late Mrs. Null. (D)
Thackeray, William Makepeace:
Pendennis. (B)
Tolstoi, Leo N.:
Resurrection. (A,B,C,D)
Train, Arthur:
Tutt and Mr. Tutt. (A,B,CD)
By Advice of Counsel. (AB,
C,D)
As It Was in the Beginning.
(B)
Trollope, Anthony:
Orley Farm. (A,BD)
IKr. Maule's Attempt. (A,B,
C,D)
Vicar of Bullhampton. (A,C,
D)
Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens):
Pudd'nhead Wilson. (A)
Warren, Samuel:
Ten Thousand a Year. (B)
Weyman, Stanley:
Francis Cludde. (A)
My Lady Rotha. (A)'
Man in Black. (A)
Woolson, Constance Fenimore:
Anne. (A)
Zangwilt, Isaac:
The Big Bow Mystery. (A,C)
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