Auctions and the Distribution of Law Books in Antebellum America.

Traditional legal history has been doctrinal history interested in the content of books rather than in how such doctrines were made known to lawyers and the public. Law books got into circulation through booksellers and auctions of new and unsold stock and the libraries of lawyers. A survey of auction catalogues suggests their value in helping to reconstruct the intellectual milieu of the antebellum bar.