Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/81

REVIEWS. 6$ The Law of Contracts. By Theophilus Parsons, LL.D. Eighth edi- tion, edited by Samuel Williston. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co. 1893. 3 volumes, royal 8vo, pp. cclxiii., 632 ; xx., 929 ; ix., 718. The chief reason for the present use and value of this much-edited text- book is, apparently, the magnificent comprehensiveness of its scope. Surely one could nowhere else find in the same book treatises on Fire Insurance and Sales, Damages, and Statutes impairing the Obligation of Contracts; and surely it must often be most convenient to the lawyer to be able to handle the whole of a case about contract without going to the separate treatises on the various subdivisions of the law. Such being the nature of the book, which reached a sixth edition under the supervision of the author himself, the duties of the editor of this edition. Professor •Williston, whose work is really the only portion of the book now properly the subject of review, have naturally confined themselves to the addition of good new cases, the excision of obsolete or unnecessary old ones, and the supplementing of the <text upon certain points of law not therein treated to an extent sufficient for the present needs of the profession. The first two pieces of the work have been most satisfactorily done. Avoiding, on the one hand, the useless collection of " all the cases," and on the other hand, any too great brevity of citation. Professor Williston has succeeded, as a test of the book will show, in giving a ready and suf- ficient key to the case law, and, further, by shutting out quotations from authorities now somewhat stale, in doing this without materially increasing the size of the book. The third part of the editor's work, the revision of the text-book itself, has been very conservatively done. Recognizing the difficulties in the way of altering the text of a much-cited book, he has practically confined his work to supplementary notes, carefully distinguished from those of Professor Parsons by the arrangement of the type. Some of these — for instance, those upon subscription-papers, divisible contracts, and the completion of contracts by mail — are excellent expositions of difficult points of law. Others appear to be too conservative. What there is of them is good ; but the text seems constantly to need more supple- menting, more explanation, and especially more contradiction, than the editor has supplied. This, however, is cause for regret rather than for complaint, and in such cases the profession doubtless prefer not to see an , old text edited out of sight. R. w. H. A Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts. By Samuel Williston. Volume IL Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1894. 8vo, cloth or sheep, pp. 618. This book is a supplement to Professor Langdell's Cases on Contracts, and will form a second volume to a single one to be compiled from the present two parts of that work. The book contains not only cases upon those parts of the law already treated by Professor Langdell, supplemen- tary to his cases, and for the greater part decided since 1879, ^^e date of the last edition of his book, but also cases upon other branches of the law of contracts not touched upon in it. The new subjects deal with the legality of contracts, their discharge, and the assignment of rights of action under them. There are a few pages in the beginning completing the subjects of rights of action condi-