1794.010: Prospectus for the New Virginia Justice.
Published: 1794
Full Title: The new Virginia justice comprising the office and authority of a justice of the peace, in the Commonwealth of Virginia ... by William Waller Hening, attorney at law.
Author: Hening, William Waller (1768-1828).
Place Issued: Richmond
Issuing Press: Uncertain
Description: 1 sheet [1 pg.]; 7 cm. x 8 cm. (broadside).
Notes
Here Hening offers a prospectus for the first edition of his New Virginia Justice (1795.016); this handbill was likely distributed with the solicitation letter he circulated among Virginia's leading legal figures at Jefferson's recommendation. Sheet lacks printer credit. Most often attributed to the Richmond press of Thomas Nicolson as Hening published the finished work through Nicolson; however, Hening did not engage Nicolson as his printer until nearly a year later, after a deal for the manual's publication could not be secured with Mathew Carey of Philadelphia (his preferred publisher) in the winter of 1794-95. Size and format of this broadside suggests the press of Augustine Davis, who Hening worked with during publication of the 1792 Revisal of the Laws (1794.037). But absent definitive evidence for either printer, credit cannot be assigned.