Announcing a Major Gift of Roman Law Books

As we said farewell to 2009, we received a generous gift of Roman law books from Michael H. Hoeflich, Kane Professor of Law at the University of Kansas. Professor Hoeflich is a well-known scholar in many areas of law and legal bibliography, including legal history, comparative law, ethics, contracts, and the history of law book publishing.

Numbering nearly 300 antiquarian and modern titles, the Hoeflich Collection contains multiple editions of seminal Roman law works in Latin, German, and French, as well as lesser-known works. The gift extends and enriches our strong antiquarian collection of Anglo-American law books, many of which we have received through the generosity of Daniel R. Coquillette, the late Kathryn "Kitty" Preyer, Robert E. Brooker III, and other friends. Professor Hoeflich's collection is both broad and deep, and reflects his knowledge of and passion for Roman law, as well as for book collecting.

We are still processing and learning about this magnificent collection, and we'll blog about it as we learn more. We plan to exhibit a selection of the works in the spring of 2011. Meanwhile, we extend a sincere and hearty thanks to Mike Hoeflich for his most generous gift.