Page "Edward Coke" Paragraph 62

Coke is best known for his written work – firstly his thirteen volumes of law reports, and secondly his four-volume Institutes of the Lawes of England.

John Marshall Gest, writing in the Yale Law Journal, notes that " There are few principles of the common law that can be studied without an examination of Coke's Institutes and Reports which summed up the legal learning of his time ", although " the student is deterred by the too common abuse of Coke's character and the general criticism of his writings as dry, crabbed, verbose and pedantic ".

John Campbell, in his The Lives of the Chief Justices of England, said that " His reasoning ... is narrow minded ; had utter contempt for method and style in his compositions ", and says that Coke's Reports were " tinctured with quaintness and pedantry ".

Gest, noting this criticism, points out that: