Landmark work in the history of jurisprudence. Originally published: London: R. Sweet, 1848. xvi, 432 pp. The only English translation of his first work, and originally published in German in 1803, this treatise on the nature of the legal concept of possession made Savigny's reputation as a jurist of the first order. "…of all books upon law, the most consummate and masterly." John Austin, The Providence of Jurisprudence Determined, xxxviii