Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2019
Publication
University of Illinois Law Review Online
Volume
2020
Abbreviation
U. Ill. L. Rev. Online
First Page
125
Abstract
Sir William Blackstone’s four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in 1765–1769, is one of the most frequently cited books in the history of the common law. In America, from the eighteenth-century debates over ratification of the U.S. Constitution to twenty-first century U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Blackstone has been repeatedly recognized as an authoritative source for English law. Generations of editors have kept his book continually in print, regularly updating it with scholarly notes. So many editions of the Commentaries appeared over the years that a special citation form emerged. From the first edition of the Bluebook in 1926 to the present, citations of the Commentaries have been to the “star page.” This article addresses the challenges of such a system.