A Chaucer from Chief Justice Coke's collection

Abstract

• The sixteenth-century books acquired by the British Museum Library from Holkham Hall included Chaucer's Workes, printed by John Reynes in 1542 (SFC 5070). This volume belonged to Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke and is no. 861 in his Library Catalogue. L. H. Horstein showed that this actual copy was quoted three times in the second and third parts of Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England (London, 1642-4). In discussing 'Felony in such as use the craft of Multiplication' [i.e. alchemy]. Coke quotes 'the tale of the Channons Yeoman, fo. 63. (in libro meo,)'.