Bouvier's Law Dictionary


Bouvier's Law Dictionary is a set consisting of two or three books with a long tradition in the United States legal community. The first edition was written by John Bouvier.
John Bouvier was born in Codognan, France, but came to the United States at an early age. He became a U.S. citizen in 1812, was admitted to the bar in 1818, and began practicing law in Philadelphia. During his years of practice and study, he noticed the lack of a solid American law dictionary. He decided to fill this need, and worked on a new law dictionary incessantly for 10 years. One of his main goals was to distinguish American law from its English antecedent. He finally presented it for publication in 1839. Like many of his generation, Bouvier used his preface to justify his work, stating the irrelevance of English legal dictionaries to the American legal system of the United States. He wanted to create a totally new law dictionary that would address the American legal system, so he derived his definitions almost wholly from customs, court decisions, and statutes of the United States.
From his preface:
In addition, Bouvier included entries for all the states that had formed the union as of 1839. A large 2-volume work, Bouvier's dictionary has been especially useful for understanding obsolete terms given in older authorities, amplifying their meanings in the American context.
The dictionary quickly became popular and received excellent reviews. The book is well written and extensively researched; Bouvier made significant contribution to each new edition and rewrote several articles. Many well known legal scholars have contributed to its revisions. Bouvier published three editions in twelve years and was preparing a fourth at the time of his death in 1851. By the year 1886, when it was first revised, there had been fifteen editions. The work is still widely used. Volumes of the early edition are considered collector items and a pristine set can fetch hundreds of dollars.

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