"The following sheets contain the substance of a course of lectures on the laws of England, which were read by the author in the university of OXFORD. His original plan took it's rise in the year 1753: and, notwithstanding the novelty of such an attempt in this age and country, and the prejudices usually conceived against any innovations in the established mode of education, he had the satisfaction to find (and he acknowledges it with a mixture of pride and gratitude) that his endeavours were encouraged and patronized by those, both in the university and out of it, whose good opinion and esteem he was principally desirous to obtain." According to Wikipedia: "Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 - 14 February 1780) was an English judge, jurist and professor who produced the historical and analytic treatise on the common law entitled 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... Leading American attorneys who first learned their law by reading Blackstone include Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln... 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, particularly the term Pursuit of Happiness, used by the framers were derived from Blackstone's works."