18th Century
Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780).
Commentaries on the laws of England. Philadelphia, 1771-1772.
First American edition.
By 1771, 1000 sets of Blackstone's Commentaries had been
shipped to the colonies. This demand led Robert Bell, best known
for printing Thomas Paine's Common Sense, to publish the
first American edition of Blackstone.