Project Information

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The Law Papers of St. George Tucker will publish Tucker’s case reports in a two-volume edition with scholarly annotations, biographical sketches of the lawyers and judges mentioned in the reports, a glossary that defines specialized legal terms, and a short-title bibliography that provides full bibliographical entries for the sources of citations.  A general introductory essay will include an overview of Tucker’s life and career, a survey of the law in post-Revolutionary Virginia, a description of Tucker’s cases and method of reporting, and an appraisal of his jurisprudence.

Publication of Tucker’s law reports is long overdue.  The project will be carried out under the auspices of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in association with the College of William and Mary and the College’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law.  The two-volume edition will be published for the Omohundro Institute by the University of North Carolina Press in 2011.  The greater part of the edition will consist of the three manuscript volumes of reports in Virginia courts from 1786 to 1811.  Tucker intended these reports to be preserved as a single integrated document, and they should be published as such.  Tucker’s reports in the U.S. District Court and U.S. Circuit Court from 1813 to 1824 will comprise a considerably smaller part of the edition.