James Kent (1763-1847) was a New York lawyer, educator, jurist and author of one of the most famous and influential treatises on American law ever written. He served as Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, 1804-1814, and Chancellor of New York (the presiding judge of the Court of Chancery), 1814-1823.
He is famous for his four volume "Commentaries on American Law" published between 1826-1830--known to lawyers as "Kent's Commentaries." Many editions have been published. Posted here is the first volume of the fourteenth edition with additions by John M. Gould published in 1896. In a "Preface" Gould notes that the comments added in the twelfth edition by Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., are retained:
"The thorough and lucid annotation of Judge Holmes in the twelfth edition, which placed the work fully in harmony with the later researches and the current of more recent decision, has in all respects been preserved and retained, as first published, in this edition."
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