The Publishing Programme

Each year the Society publishes its "regular" book which members receive AT NO EXTRA CHARGE and which is funded primarily by members' fees. All overhead costs, including research grants to authors and editorial and administrative charges, come out of general revenues.

Printable Publication Order Form
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As well, the Society publishes "optional extras." These are books which the Directors consider are of interest to members and which advance our educational objectives. Most of our books are published in co-operation with our regular publisher, the University of Toronto Press. Sometimes, we work with another publishing house. Society members receive our books at an advantageous price. The prices given below for all books are inclusive of GST.

Fulfilling our mandate means publishing books that conform to high standards of scholarship and are also interesting to our many members in the legal profession. We thus strive to achieve readability, interest and good scholarship.

To receive any of our books, or to join the the Osgoode Society, please phone or fax us at (416) 947-3321 or (416)947-3447 respectively. Order forms and membership form are available on this site.

Books for 2010 - Available in the Fall

Members Book

Work on Trial: Canadian Labour Law Struggles Edited by Judy Fudge, Lansdowne Professor of Law, University of Victoria, and Eric Tucker, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School.

The world of work, so important to individuals' economic well-being and to their sense of self, has been fundamentally shaped by law, both collective bargaining law and individual employment law. We are grateful to Professors Fudge and Tucker for putting together this volume, which looks behind significant Canadian court battles over many aspects of labour law to unearth the historical context of the cases and analyse the individuals involved. Authors from across the country each take on a famous labour case in a series of case studies, from early cases about constitutional jurisdiction (Snider; John East), though picketing classics (Hersees; Harrison v. Carswell), to more recent employment law and human rights milestones (Wallace; Meioren). Each chapter tells an interesting story of how and why the case got to court and how the issues were resolved. This volume will interest not just those in the labour and employment law field; anybody concerned with the litigation process will enjoy reading the details of what lies behind the law reports.

Published for the Osgoode Society by Irwin Law. $45 incl GST.

Optional Extras

A History of the British Columbia Court of Appeal by Christopher Moore, Independent Historian

The Court of Appeal of British Columbia began sitting in 1910, and this volume thus coincides with the court's centenary. Renowned historian Christopher Moore has produced a masterful account of the court, one that combines narrative, biographical and analytical histories of a major provincial judicial institution over one hundred years. Anchored by rich detailed studies of the court's judges, it provides also extensive data on court organisation, administration, and caseload. Each chapter also includes vignettes of famous and unusual cases dealt with by the court, as well as commentary on the ways in which the court's work both reflected and influenced the province's history. This book is the Osgoode Society's fifth court history, and we hope that it will serve as both inspiration and model for many other histories of our country's courts.

Published for the Osgoode Society by the University of British Columbia Press. $40 incl GST.

Viscount Haldane: Wicked Stepfather of the Canadian Constitution by Frederick Vaughan, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph

Lord Haldane is well-known to historians of Canadian constitutional law as one of the Privy Council judges most responsible for re-shaping the division of powers in the direction of greater provincial power after World War One. In this deeply-researched biography Fred Vaughan, author of a biography of Emmett Hall published by the Osgoode Society in 2004, puts Haldane's Canadian decisions in the context both of Haldane's life and thought and prior Canadian jurisprudence. Haldane's education, his devotion to Hegelian philosophy, his work as a leading barrister, his various causes, especially education reform, and his service in the War Cabinet are all analysed, as are some intriguing personality quirks. What emerges is a picture of a complex and deeply principled jurist, and a better understanding of why we got the constitutional division of powers that we did.

Published for the Osgoode Society by the University of Toronto Press. $45 incl GST.

Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario's Criminal Courts, 1850-1950 by Barrington Walker, Professor History, Queen's University

In recent years legal historians have been increasingly interested in the social history of the law and in the law's impact on, among many other social phenomena, race relations. This ground-breaking study investigates the relationship between Ontario's black community and the criminal courts from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Using a sample comprised of capital case files and the assize records for Kent and Essex counties, counties with relatively large black populations because they were termini of the underground railroad, Professor Walker investigates the 'limits of freedom' for Ontario's African Canadians. He contrasts formal legal equality with pervasive patterns of social, economic and attitudinal inequality. The records allow him not only to analyse attitudes of the dominant community, but also to provide rare glimpses into black life in the Canadian past.

Published for the Osgoode Society by the University of Toronto Press. $40 incl GST.

BOOK AWARDS

We are pleased to congratulate one of our authors, Professor Constance Backhouse, for being named to the Order of Ontario in 2010. Professor Backhouse was honoured for her work as scholar, educator, and advocate for womens' rights. That work includes four Osgoode Society books:

Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975 (2008)
The Heiress versus the Establishment: Mrs. Campbell's Campaign for Legal Justice (2004, with Nancy Backhouse)
Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900 - 1950 (1999)
Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (1991).

Three of Professor Backhouse's books have won awards, and indeed our books have garnered many prestigious awards.

Our 2008 members’ book, Constance Backhouse, Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975, has won a major award, the Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize for any book published in 2008. This is the third year in a row that an Osgoode Society book has won this award.

This success, of which we are very proud, follows the accolades garnered by our members' books for 2006 (Don Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764-1837) and 2007 (Robert Sharpe & Patricia McMahon, The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood). Both won the afore-mentioned Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize. Magistrates, Police and People also won a Clio Award for Regional History, given by the Canadian Historical Association, and the Priz Lionel Groulx of the Institut d’histoire de l’Ámerique française, awarded for the best book on the history of French America. It was also an honourable mention for two prizes: the John A. MacDonald Prize, awarded annually by the Canadian Historical Association for the best book in any field of Canadian history, and the J. Willard Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association, for the best book in English on socio-legal history for any country.

Here is a full list of all the awards won by Osgoode Society books.

Ontario Historical Society Awards

J.J. Talman Award, for the best book on any aspect of Ontario history in the previous three years.
Winner, 2000: Peter Oliver, Terror to Evil-Doers: Prisons and Punishments in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Fred Landon Award, for the best book on regional history in Ontario in the previous three years.
Winner, 2006: John Honsberger, Osgoode Hall: An Illustrated History

Joseph Brant Award, for the best book on the province's multi-cultural history.
Winner, 2002 - Constance Backhouse, Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950

Alison Prentice Award, best book in women's history in the preceding three years.
Winner, 2001 - Lori Chambers, Married Women and Property Law in Victorian Ontario
Winner, 2004 - Ellen Anderson, Judging Bertha Wilson: Law as Large as Life.
Winner, 2007 - Lori Chambers, Misconceptions: Unmarried Motherhood and the Ontario Children of Unmarried Parents Act, 1921-1969

Canadian Historical Association Awards

John A. MacDonald Prize, awarded annually by the Canadian Historical Association for the best book
in any field of Canadian history.
Winner, 2003: Jerry Bannister, The Rule of the Admirals: Law, Custom and Naval Government in Newfoundland, 1699-1832
Honourable Mention, 2005: Philip Girard, Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life
Honourable Mention, 2006: Don Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764-1837.

Clio Award, Regional History.
Winner, 2006: Don Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764-1837

Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize

Winner 2006 - Don Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764-1837.
Winner 2007 - Robert Sharpe and Patricia McMahon, The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood.
Winner 2008 - Constance Backhouse, Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975.

Other Awards

The 2009 David W. Mundell Medal was awarded to Robert J. Sharpe. The Mundell Medal, awarded since 1986, is given annually to an author who has made a distinguished contribution to the law in legal writing. Among the books for which Robert Sharpe was given the award are included three Osgoode Society books: The Last Day, The Last Hour: The Currie Libel Trial; Brian Dickson: A Judge's Journey (with Kent Roach); and The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood (with Patricia McMahon).

J. Willard Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association, for the best book in English on socio-legal history for any country.
Winner, 1992 - Constance Backhouse, Women and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada
Honourable Mention, 2007 - Don Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764-1837

Floyd Chalmers Award, given annually by the Champlain Society for writing on Ontario history.
Winner 2001 - L.S. McDowell, Renegade Lawyer: The Life of J.L. Cohen
Winner 2005 - Philip Girard, Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life

Finalist, Governor-General's Award for Non-Fiction
2000 - Brian McKillop, The Spinster & The Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G.Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past.

John Wesley Dafoe Book Prize for distinguished writing on Canada and/or Canada's place in the world.
Winner 2002 - John Saywell, The Law Makers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism
Winner 2003 - Robert Sharpe & Kent Roach, Brian Dickson: A Judge's Journey

City of Toronto Book Prize
Winner 2000 - Brian McKillop, The Spinster & The Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G.Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past

Arthur Ellis Award for the Best Non-Fiction book.
Winner 2000 - Brian McKillop, The Spinster & The Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G.Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past

 

Published for the Osgoode Society by the University of Toronto Press