The chapters in this volume all explore the process of seeking justice through literature. While many do revolve around specific legal issues, such as the expropriation of common lands through acts of enclosure, the reform of the ‘Bloody Code’, the abolition of slavery and the trials of Queen Caroline and Warren Hastings, their chief concern lies with the ways law was perceived outside of judicial settings. They consider how authors, even those with legal training such as Walter Scott, took up their pens to chart the cognitive and affective impact of regulations on people expected to abide by them and to plead for equitable adjustments when that impact appears to be unjust. Despite the range of topics, the chapters share an interest in this judicious inquiry.

The chapters are grouped in three parts, according to the kind of searches for justice undertaken; Introductions placed before each part explain the activity of seeking justice and locate the chapters in each part with respect to that undertaking. Chapters in Part I are largely ‘ deductive’: in the Enlightenment tradition of broad philosophical inquiry, they seek understanding of the principles, concepts or motives that can assist or impede fair judgement in human experience. Those in Part II are more ‘inductive’: with Romantic-era sensitivity to the individual, they seek understanding of the injustices that arise from biased judgements in particular cases – notably cases involving national, ethnic, historical or vocational consciousness – and of ways to resist the imposed assumptions.