Autograph Letter Signed [Boston?] February 14, [1853] to “Mr. Houghton”

octavo, 2 pages, few ink smudges, else in very good clean condition.

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), founding father of Harvard Law School, completes his classic of American jurisprudence, the "Mr. Houghton" to whom the letter was addressed was very likely Henry Houghton, of Bolles & Houghton, then typesetters and printers for Little & Brown publishers, and who later founded his own publishing company, Houghton, Mifflin.

Greenleaf writes:

"Herewith I send you all the remaining copy of the Criminal Law, which completes Part V – The next, viz. Part VI, will consist of Evidence in Equity, which I expect to complete in about two weeks. If you shall have finished Part V before I finish Part VI it will be necessary to wait for it as I do not like to begin to print until I have written the whole of that title. But I trust I shall be ready for you. The books from which extracts are to be made in the copy now sent … I can furnish, if needed."

Greenleaf, who with Justice Joseph story is considered the founding father of Harvard Law School, produced his "Treatise on the Law of Evidence", destined to become a classic of American Jurisprudence, in three separate volumes between 1842 and 1853. Parts V and VI mentioned in this letter, were in Volume 3, which appeared in bookstores in the fall of 1853.

American National Biography, volume 9, pp., 542-543