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Sir William Blackstone (originally pronounced Blexstun) (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist and professor who produced the historical and analytic treatise on the common law called Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in four volumes over 1765–1769. It had an extraordinary success, reportedly bringing the author £14,000, and still remains an important source on classical views of the common law and its principles. Blackstone was born in Cheapside in 1723, the posthumous son of a London silk mercer. He received his education at Charterhouse School and at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1743 he became a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and he was called to the bar as a barrister at the Middle Temple in 1746. After practising in the courts of Westminster for several years, without great success, he returned to Oxford in 1758 when another lawyer, Charles Viner, established an endowed chair at the university for a lecturer in law. Viner's endowed chair became known as the Vinerian professorship, and it exists to the present day. At this time, he was appointed Principal of New Inn Hall (now St. Peter's College, Oxford). Blackstone lived at Castle Priory in Wallingford, and is buried at St Peter's Church in the town. In addition to the Commentaries, Blackstone published treatises on Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forests. In 1761 he won election as a Member of Parliament for Hindon and "took silk" as a king's counsel. He also wrote some poetry. Blackstone and his work occasionally appear in literature. For example, Blackstone receives mention in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. A bust of Blackstone is a typical ornament of a lawyer's office in early Perry Mason novels, and in Anatomy of a Murder. Blackstone's Commentaries are also mentioned in Charles Portis's comic novel, The Dog of the South. It is also mentioned in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as the tool used to teach Calpurnia, a black woman, how to read. Blackstone wrote his books on common law shortly before the United States Constitution was written. Many terms and phrases used by the framers were derived from Blackstone's works.
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