Common precedents: the presentness of the past in Victorian law and fiction

Abstract

Contents Introduction: Common Precedents Part I - The Forms Of Legal Precedent 1 Stare Decisis, Law Reports, and the Materiality of Legal Form The History of Legal Precedent Law Reports - Form and Function Anti-narrativity Anti-Narrativity and the History of Law Reporting Part II - Precedential Forms of Fiction 2 Precedential Reasoning: George Eliot's Middlemarch 3 Empirical Customs: Heirlooms And Facts In Trollope's Eustace Diamonds 4 Past Perfect: Legitimacy and The Woman in White