Anspach’s Summary of the Laws of Commerce and Navigation Edited with introductory essay and notes by Christopher Curran & Melvin Baker (2020)

Anspach’s Summary of the Laws of Commerce and Navigation was the colony’s first home-grown compilation of law relating to commercial legal practice and may be regarded as Newfoundland’s first commercial law textbook. This transcription of the original is based on a first edition owned by former Chief Justice R. S. Furlong.

To situate Anspach’s Summary in context it is accompanied in this republication by transcriptions from the English statute volumes and handwritten court decisions from the Court Minute Books of the period.

Barrels to Benches – The Foundations of English Law on Newfoundland’s West Coast. Edited by Christopher English (2010)

When Sir Robert Bond addressed Newfoundland’s House of Assembly in April 1904 to announce that, as part of the diplomatic arrangements signed between the United Kingdom and France, the French Shore Question had been resolved, he assured his listeners that this issue had long been a thorny cause of irritation…so opens Olaf U. Janzen’s contribution to this collection of essays in celebration of the official opening of the Corner Brook Consolidated Courthouse on 3 May, 2010. Contributing authors include: Christopher English, Michael Wilkshire, James K. Hiller, Christopher Curran and Melvin Baker, and Chief Justice Clyde K. Wells.  B & W and full colour illustrations throughout.

D. W. Prowse’s Manual for Magistrates in Newfoundland (1877). Edited with an Introductory Essay by Christopher P. Curran and Melvin Baker (2016)

This new printing of D.W. Prowse’s 1877 Manual for Magistrates makes available to the Bar and to the public one of the ‘classics’ of Newfoundland’s 19th century legal literature. The reprint is based on Sir James Spearman Winter’s (# 52 on the Roll of the Law Society) copy of the original, of which only 100 were ever printed. The original is now extremely rare. The book is accompanied by an introductory essay by the editors and by an array of related photographic illustrations from the period. This printing is a limited print run.

Discourse and Discovery: Sir Richard Whitbourne Quatercentennial Symposium 1615 – 2015 and Beyond. Edited by Melvin Baker, Christopher Curran and J. Derek Green (2017)

In June 2015, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, in conjunction with the National Judicial Institute and the SS Daisy Legal History Committee of the Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, held a symposium to mark the 400th anniversary of the holding by Sir Richard Whitbourne of a court of Vice Admiralty in Newfoundland.  The holding of the court at Trinity on June 4, 1615, which was repeated in other communities along the eastern coast of the island during the summer of 1615, is reputed to have been the first such formal judicial proceeding held under the umbrella of English admiralty law to that time in North America.  This publication contains the edited versions of most of the papers and presentations made on the first day of the symposium with its focus on the province’s legal history, plus some additional historical material. Contributing authors include: Dr. Melvin Baker, Dr. Jerry Bannister, Hon. David M. Brown, Hon Justice Thomas A. Cromwell, Christopher P. Curran Q.C., David C. Day Q.C., Dr. Peter E. Pope, Dr. Philip Girard, Hon, J. Derek Green, Professor Emeritus W. Gordon Handcock, Hon. Judge John L. Joy, Professor Emeritus John McLaren and Dr. Lynne Phillips.    B & W and full colour illustrations, a timeline of milestone events in the history of English Law and Judicature in Newfoundland and Labrador and a select bibliography supplement the text.