A starting point for the study of the English Constitution and comparative constitutional law, The Law of the Constitution elucidates the guiding principles of the modern constitution of England: the legislative sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law, and the binding force of unwritten conventions.

This volume brings together a series of lectures A. V. Dicey first gave at Harvard Law School on the influence of public opinion in England during the nineteenth century and its impact on legislation. It is an accessible attempt by an Edwardian liberal to make sense of recent British history. In our time, it helps define what it means to be an individualist or liberal. Dicey's lectures were a reflection of the anxieties felt by turn-of-the-century Benthamite Liberals in the face of Socialist and New Liberal challenges.
A. V. Dicey (1835-1922) was an English jurist, Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford University, and author of, among other works, "The Law of the Constitution."
Richard VandeWetering is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario.

A year after the publication of Dicey's "Law of the Constitution," William Gladstone was reading it aloud in the House of Commons, citing it as authority. It remains, to this day, a starting point for the study of the English Constitution and comparative constitutional law. "Law of the Constitution" elucidates the guiding principles of the modern constitution of England: the legislative sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law, and the binding force of unwritten conventions. Dicey's goal was "to provide students with a manual which may impress these leading principles on their minds, and thus may enable them to study with benefit in Blackstone's "Commentaries" and other treatises of the like nature those legal topics which, taken together, make up the constitutional law of England." Albert Venn Dicey (1835-1922) was Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford University from 1882 to 1909.

The Law of the Constitution has been the main doctrinal influence upon English constitutional thought since the late-nineteenth century. It acquired and long retained extraordinary legal authority, despite fierce criticism and many changes in law and government. By many, it was treated as a canonical text embodying axiomatic principles, or it was simply understood as indeed the law of the constitution; and even by its critics, it was still granted the status of orthodoxy. Basic constitutional principles became commonly conceived in Diceyan terms: parliamentary sovereignty was pure and absolute in being without legal limit; and Dicey's rule of law precluded recognition of an English administrative law and thus retarded its development for decades. Reaffirmed in each new edition of Dicey's canonical text, the constitution itself seemed static. This volume provides sources with which to reassess the extraordinary authority and lasting influence of Dicey's canonical text. This volume consists of Dicey's rare first edition in its original lecture form and of the main addenda in later editions. It facilitates a historical understanding of Dicey's original text in its context and of later changes when they were made. In introducing the first volume, John Allison reassesses The Law of the Constitution's authority and the kinds of response it has elicited in view of its original educative form and educational context.

The Oxford Edition of Dicey provides sources with which to reassess the extraordinary authority and lasting influence of Dicey's canonical text. Volume Two, Comparative Constitutionalism, provides a complement to Dicey's The Law of the Constitution. These largely unpublished comparative constitutional lectures were written for different versions of a comparative constitutional book that Dicey began but did not finish prior to his death in 1922. The lectures were a pioneering venture into comparative constitutionalism and reveal an approach to legal education broader than Dicey is widely understood to have taken. In Part I, The Comparative Study of the Constitution, topics discussed include constitutionalism in the English Commonwealth, and French, American, and Prussian constitutionalism. Part II, The Comparative Study of Constitutions, includes lectures on representative government, the separation of powers, and basic divisions between kinds of constitution. The volume begins with an editorial introduction examining the implications of these comparative lectures and Dicey's early foray into comparative constitutionalism for his general constitutional thought, and the kinds of response it has elicited.

The Law of the Constitution has been the main doctrinal influence upon English constitutional thought since the late-nineteenth century. It acquired and long retained extraordinary legal authority, despite fierce criticism and many changes in law and government. By many, it was treated as a canonical text embodying axiomatic principles, or it was simply understood as indeed the law of the constitution; and even by its critics, it was still granted the status of orthodoxy. Basic constitutional principles became commonly conceived in Diceyan terms: parliamentary sovereignty was pure and absolute in being without legal limit; and Dicey's rule of law precluded recognition of an English administrative law and thus retarded its development for decades. Reaffirmed in each new edition of Dicey's canonical text, the constitution itself seemed static. The Oxford Edition of Dicey provides sources with which to reassess the extraordinary authority and lasting influence of Dicey's canonical text. This volume consists of Dicey's rare first edition in its original lecture form and of the main addenda in later editions. It facilitates a historical understanding of Dicey's original text in its context and of later changes when they were made. In introducing the first volume, John Allison reassesses The Law of the Constitution's authority and the kinds of response it has elicited in view of its original educative form and educational context.

Originally published in 1897, this is the fifth edition of 'Introduction to the study of the Law of the Constitution' It deals only with two or three guiding principles which pervade the modern constitution of England. The object is to provide students with a manual which may impress these leading principles on there minds, and thus may enable them to study with benefit in Blackstone's Commentaries and other treatises of the like nature those legal topics which, taken together, make up the constitutional law of England........ Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

As Americans we know much about our own constitution. Dicey now gives the reader a chance to learn more about the British constitution. Albert Dicey was a British jurist and constitutional theorist. DIcey was a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and later became Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford and a leading constitutional scholar of his day. An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution was written in 1885. The principles it expounds are considered part of the uncodified British constitution. Dicey believed that freedom was under attack by modern incursions against the Rule of Law. Dicey writes that the freedom British subjects enjoy depends on the supremacy of Common Law, the sovereignty of Parliament, and the courts remaining impartial without governmental interference.