In 1893 the first edition of Charles Burke Elliott's The Principles of the Law of Private Corporations--With Leading and Illustrative Cases was published. A revised edition came out in 1895, and a second printing of that edition followed in 1897. In 1900 the work was revised and renamed as A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations. This "third revised edition" is posted here. The fourth and final edition, enlarged and revised by Professor Howard S. Abbott, was published in 1911. Meanwhile Elliott's textbook on private corporations was published in 1898; it was revised and enlarged by Professor Isaac Maurice Wormser and published in 1914.
Elliott's treatise and his casebook on private corporations had their origins in an outline of lectures he prepared for his students at the University of Minnesota College of Law. That privately published outline was noted in the first issue of the first volume of The Minnesota Law Journal in May 1893:
"OUTLINE of LECTURES on THE LAW of PRIVATE Corporations. By CHARLES B. ELLIOTT, L. L. B., Ph.D., Lecturer in the College of Law in the University of Minnesota. Published by the Author. 1893.
"This work is a neat volume of about 125 pages, and contains what its subject indicates, an outline of the subject which Judge Elliott has for several years expounded for the benefit of the students in the Law at the State University. Every other leaf is blank, thus giving the student an opportunity to take an abundance of notes in connection with the lectures. No attempt has been made to set forth the statutory provisions on the subject, as the students have ready access to the statutes. All the general law on the subject is set out in a small space, and the author doubtless found it difficult to write so small a book on so large a subject. It will be a great assistance to the students and an immense improvement upon the old method of taking their own notes on the fly, as it were. The work is issued only for the use of the students, and is not intended for general circulation."
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Posted MLHP: August 20, 2016.
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