Recent Publications | September 19, 2017

"Law's Picture Books" Published

Yale.JPGTalbot Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of an important new title: “Illustrated law books” may seem like an oxymoron. After all, law is conceptual, analytic, and so very wordy! Yet for the past decade, over a thousand illustrated law books have been assembled in the Yale Law Library - spanning eight centuries and four continents. Law’s Picture Books began as a major exhibition of that collection at the Grolier Club (9/13 to 11/18/17) in New York City, curated by Rare Book Librarian Michael Widener and legal historian Mark S. Weiner. In challenging the stereotype of legal literature as a dreary expanse of dry text, this book will surprise and delight both bibliophiles and members of the legal community.

This handsome full-color book is enhanced by Michael Widener’s essay “Collecting Yale Law Library’s Picture Books,” Mark S. Weiner’s “Reflections on an Exhibition,” Jolande E. Goldberg’s “Ars Memoria in Early Law: Looking Beneath the Picture” and Erin C. Blake’s “Law’s Picture Books and the History of Book Illustration.”

Law’s Picture Books

The Yale Law Library Collection

Michael Widener Mark S. Weiner

Paperback, full color, vii, 211 pp., 9”x 9” ISBN 978-1-61619-160-3 $39.95