Introduction
This introductory chapter sets the scene and provides a rationale for the book as a whole. Various reasons are offered to explain why the author of such a major work as the Commentaries has yet to receive anything like adequate attention from biographers and historians. Besides reviewing Blackstone's fluctuating reputation, and the state of the currently available literature on the man and his career, there is some discussion of problems of evidence and the influence of Blackstone's own autobiographical account, as represented in the authoritative ‘Memoirs’ compiled by his brother-in-law James Clitherow. The chapter concludes with a brief outline of the book's main aims, as being in particular to provide a contextualized account of Blackstone's life, told so far as possible without the benefit of hindsight. The relationship between biographer and subject is also discussed.
Keywords: rationale, historiography, review of literature, biographers, historians, evidence, reputation, autobiography, Commentaries
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .