Angela FERNANDEZ, Pierson v. Post, The Hunt for the Fox - Law and Professionalization in American Legal Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781107039285, £ 95.00

(Source: Cambridge University Press)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a book on Pierson v. Post, a leading 19^th century case in American property law. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

The 1805 New York foxhunting case Pierson v. Post has long been used in American property law classrooms to introduce law students to the concept of first possession by asking how one establishes possession of a wild animal. In this book, Professor Angela Fernandez retells the history of the famous fox case, from its origins as a squabble between two wealthy young men on the South Fork of Long Island through its appeal to the New York Supreme Court and entry into legal treatises, law school casebooks, and law journal articles, where it still occupies a central place. Professor Fernandez argues that the dissent is best understood as an example of legal solemn foolery. Yet it has been treated by legal professionals, the lawyers of its day, and subsequent legal academics in such a serious way, demonstrating how the solemn and the silly can occupy two sides of the same coin in American legal history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Angela Fernandez, University of Toronto

Angela Fernandez is a legal historian at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, where she is also a member of the Department of History. She has published numerous articles and is co-editor of Law Books in Action: Essays on the Anglo-American Legal Treatise (2012).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I. The Literary History of Pierson:

1. Solemn foolery

2. Rabelaisian play

Part II. The Social History of Pierson:

3. Local justice

4. Lawyerization

5. The legal fictions needed for a state of nature debate

Part III. The Intellectual History of Pierson:

6. The reporter

7. Mandarization

Conclusion.

More information here