Private Property and Abuse of Rights in Victorian England

... this is a work of immense scholarship ... reference is sure to be made to this excellent book. * The King's College Law Journal *
The Story of Edward Pickles is a fascinating exercise in legal history which casts considerable light on the development of the English common law in the nineteenth century, the influence of Roman, and, indeed, of Scots, law and the attitudes of certain of the judges. * Legal Studies *
Quite apart from its legal interest, this is a vivid case study in the social and economic history of late-Victorian England. * The Edinburgh Law Review *
... offers a detailed investigation of the social context and legal ramifications of the leading case Bradford v. Pickles, which provides a vehicle for the examination of the scope of legal property rights. * Auckland University Law Review *
Professor Taggart's overt fascination with the facts and history of the case produces a work that is both thoroughly researched and well written ... [he] adeptly animates the characters involved in the dispute, leaving the reader to enjoy the unfolding events of the book as if it were a novel. * Auckland University Law Review *
The final two chapters constitute the pièce de resistance. Professor Taggart examines several doctrines which mediate a property owner's absolute right to use their property in any way. * Auckland University Law Review *
Private Property and Abuse of Rights in Victorian England is an alluring read that demands thorough attention and sequential reading ... provides an engrossing study of the legal landscape of nineteenth century England together with a fine study of the antithetical relationship between common and civil law approaches to property rights. * Auckland University Law Review *
Professor Taggart's book brims with sophisticated, carefully rendered, and clearly written legal scholarship. It tackles an important subject-matter. * Otago Law Review *
... excellent book ... meticulously researched ... The author writes throughout with a particularly lucid style, and prefers to stimulate the reader's own reflections than adopt a didactic style, which contributes to the pleasure of this study. * The Cambridge Law Journal *
It is precisely Professor Taggart's achievement in this book that he manages to "illumine" so much in the fields of tort and property law. * The Cambridge Law Journal *
... a fascinating excercise in legal history which casts considerable light on the development of the English common law in the nineteenth century, the influence of Roman and, indeed, of Scots, law and the attitudes of certain of the judges. * Legal Studies *
The book tells in detail but with commendable clarity the curious but legally important story of the struggle in the eighteen-nineties between Bradford Corporation and Edward Pickles, a farmer from under whose land the Corporation took water via a copious spring ... the whole book is very readable, even where it is likely to stretch the understanding of non-lawyers. * Northern History *
This book tells in detail but with commendable clarity the curious but legally important story of the struggle in the eighteen-nineties between Bradford Corporation and Edward Pickles, a farmer from under whose land the Corporation took water via a copious spring. * Northern History *
[Taggart's] readable book sets the problem in the wider contexts of public utility v. private freedom, and looks to the approaches of some other legal systems. * Bernard Rudden, London Review of Books *
... a work of undoubted scholarship, yet one which remains readable and engaging ... it should satisfy the most demanding of private lawyers, whilst at the same time remaining interesting and accessible to anyone with even a passing interest in the history of common law. * Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly *
This is an original contribution to our understanding of how local government functioned in the late nineteenth centuty. * Modern Law Review *
... an enlightening study. It is a tour de force of legal forensics and analysis, always intelligent and highly readable even when dealing with some remarkably complex legal doctrine. It will be important for modern property and tort lawyers as well as legal historians. * Modern Law Review *
Michael Taggart has explored the case and its implications with an impressive reach of research, including plunges into archival local history, close reading of relevant common law and statute material, and a thorough grip on the vast secondary literature, to which he adds much comparative material from Scots, American, Continental and Commonwealth law. * The Modern Law Review *