William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) is perhaps the most elegant and influential legal text in the history of the common law. By one estimate, Blackstone has been cited well over 10,000 times in American judicial opinions alone. Prominent in recent reassessment of Blackstone and his works, Wilfrid Prest also convened the Adelaide symposia which have now generated two collections of essays: Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (2009), and Re-Interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts (2014).This third collection focuses on Blackstone's critics and detractors. Leading scholars examine the initial reception of the Commentaries in the context of debates over law, religion and politics in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. Having shown Blackstone's volumes to be a contested work of the Enlightenment, the remaining chapters assess critical responses to Blackstone on family law, the status of women and legal education in Britain and America. While Blackstone and his Commentaries have been widely lauded and memorialised in marble, this volume highlights the extent to which they have also attracted censure, controversy and disparagement.

1. Rationalising the Common Law: Blackstone and His PredecessorsMichael Lobban2. The 'Least Repulsive' Work on a 'Repulsive Subject': Jeremy Bentham on William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England Philip Schofield3. Blackstone, Expositor and Censor of Law Both Made and Found Jessie Allen4. William Blackstone, Edward Gibbon and Thomas Winchester: The Case for an Oxford Enlightenment Ian Doolittle5. Rational Dissent and Blackstone's Commentaries Anthony Page6. Blackstone, Parliamentary Sovereignty and his Irish Critics Ultán Gillen7. Blackstone, Family Law and the Exclusion of the Half Blood in Inheritance Tim Stretton8. Blackstone and Women Carolyn Steedman9. Professing Law in the Shadow of the Commentaries David Lieberman10. Hammond's Blackstone and the Historical School of American Jurisprudence David M Rabban11. 'A Very Narrowing Effect Upon Our Profession': A Progressive Jurist Confronts Blackstone John V Orth12. Blackstone's Posthumous Reputation Wilfrid Prest