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Thomas Jefferson's personally owned copy of Sir John Davies' foundational Irish law reports, Le Premier Report des Cases & Matters en Ley resolves adiudges en les Cours del Roy en Ireland, published in Dublin by John Franckton in 1615. Contemporary blind-stamped calf folio, 7.5 x 11, 97 leaves, with raised bands, later professionally rebacked and restored at the spine, retaining the 1677 analytical table/index, Une Exact Table al Report de Sir John Davys, bound at the rear, and housed in a custom quarter morocco clamshell presentation case. Noted as the first published collection of Irish case law, the work contains reports of ten cases argued between 1604 and 1612 during Davies' tenure as crown law officer in Ireland, including nine cases in Law French and one in English. The volume bears Jefferson's characteristic manuscript ownership markings formed from the printer's signature letters, with a cursive "T" added to the "I" signature leaf (page 17), forming part of his customary ‘TJ’ identification system. The corresponding "J" signature leaf (page 37) was removed at an unknown date, though the offset ink impression of Jefferson's missing marking remains visible on the facing page; a facsimile replacement leaf has been professionally tipped in. The opening free endpapers contain extensive manuscript biographical notes on Davies in the hand of Sir John Randolph, who has signed at the conclusion. Accompanied by a cut signature of Peyton Randolph, the Virginia attorney general and future president of the First Continental Congress, from whose estate Jefferson acquired the Randolph family law library in 1775. Book condition: VG/None, with expected wear consistent with age and use.
The volume descended through one of colonial Virginia's most important legal dynasties. Sir John Randolph (1693-1737), speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses and among the colony's foremost attorneys, assembled an extensive legal library intended to support his projected history of Virginia law. The library passed to his son, Peyton Randolph, and following the latter's death in 1775, Jefferson acquired a substantial portion of the Randolph legal library, incorporating many of its volumes into his own growing collection.
Jefferson obtained the book at a formative moment in both his legal and political career. Having completed his legal training under George Wythe and established himself as a practicing attorney and Burgess, he was rapidly emerging as one of Virginia's leading political thinkers; within a year, he would draft the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson relied heavily upon his books throughout his public life, corresponding with figures including James Madison and Wythe regarding legal and political texts, and frequently lending volumes to friends, attorneys, and scholars. One such loan likely spared this copy from inclusion in the 1815 sale of Jefferson's approximately 6,500-volume library to Congress, acquired to rebuild the Library of Congress after its destruction during the War of 1812.
Jefferson's ownership markings represent one of the most recognizable and ingenious identification systems employed by any early American bibliophile. Rather than inscribing his full name, Jefferson utilized the printer's signature letters placed at the foot of gatherings to guide binders during assembly. Using the 23-letter Latin alphabet standard in early modern printing, he added a cursive "T" to the "I" signature leaf – the Latin equivalent of "J" – and a cursive "J" to the "T" signature leaf, thereby creating his initials "TJ" across corresponding gatherings. The survival here of Jefferson's original "T" marking together with the offset impression from the missing "J" leaf provides especially strong evidence of the book's place within Jefferson's library.
