Typographic Legality: The Source and Transmission of the Common Law

Author: Thomas Giddens
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 9781399515436
Published In: June 2026
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

HKD 1,053.00

Download Order Form

Add to Wishlist
| Add to Compare

Description
Contents

Details

Examines the primary texts of the common law as visual and aesthetic artefacts.

Examines previously unacknowledged features of the common law’s cultural form as text, connecting the minutiae of its typography to historical, political and theoretical concerns of legal studies
Develops a high-level analysis that encompasses major technological revolutions in law’s textual production, from print to the digital
Undertakes a typographic study of the first modern printed law report
Includes an extended critical examination of Times New Roman as the font used for court transcripts in England and Wales
Engages the technologies of the common law’s digital display as text on screen

The typographic form of judgment stages the authoritative presence of the common law. It is in the encounter with typographic materials that legal meaning is generated, yet typographic legality — the material expression of law as visual text — is rarely examined. In this book, Thomas Giddens refocuses critical attention by studying the history of the common law’s visual technologies and unpacking the heritage, meanings and techniques of its typographic appearance. It thereby develops new methodological approaches for reading the common law’s primary materials as visual media.

From the archive as a typographic theatre of jurisdiction, to early law report printing, to the mass duplication of reports and their entanglement in the project of empire, to the common law’s digital display, Typographic Legality encounters enduring questions of legal authority, media and technology in the material details of the common law’s textual form.

A Note on the Form of the Text

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

‘Font’ as Source and Transmission

1. Staging the Law: The Theatre of the Archive

2. Printing the Law: A Roman Face on an English Body

3. Copying the Law: The Romance of Empire

4. Delivering the Law: All Roads Lead to Times New Roman

5. Displaying the Law: Apparitions on the Screen

Conclusion

Appendix 1: A Typographic Primer

Appendix 2: On Bézier Curves