Popular legal treatises were continued after their authors died as valuable publisher brand names.

Evidence

When a work was popular, as Parsons’s was, it was repeatedly revised, even after the author died or withdrew from the stage. Publishers hired other men to carry on, using what had become a valuable brand name. Samuel Williston edited the eighth edition of Parsons’s Contracts in 1893; Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. edited the twelfth edition of Kent’s Commentaries in 1873. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3578

Categorization

• SHARE: A minor but nice detail on how treatise authors’ names became marketable brands—shares with anyone interested in the history of the legal publishing industry.