Powell, John Joseph. Essay Upon the Law of Contracts and Agreements. Walpole: Printed, At the Press of Thomas & Thomas, by David Newhall, 1802. Two volumes. Reprint available January 2005 by the Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-520-3. Cloth. $150. * Reprint of the first American edition of the first treatise on the subject. (It is based on the first London edition, 1790, to which it is starred.) Powell [1755?-1801] wrote several distinguished treatises that were used widely in England and America, including this one. Though mildly critical of its organization, Holdsworth considers it "an able book" that "is much more than a digest of cases" because "[i]n all cases the author tries, with considerable success, to state principles, and to illustrate them by cases.": History of English Law XII:392.

Excerpt from Essay Upon the Law of Contracts and Agreements, Vol. 1 of 2 A contract, according to the common law definition ofit, is an agreement between two or more concerning fomething to be done, whereby borh parties are bound to each other, or one is bound to the other. But, by the writers upon general law, it is defined to be. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.