Denis Cowen (1917-2007) is renowned for his work on negotiable instruments. Selected Essays presents readers with other facets of his life’s work. His seminal essays and articles helped define areas of law such as environmental law and the law of competition. His work on law of property and statutory interpretation has also proved to be ahead of its time. As a public intellectual in the liberal tradition, he spoke with great timeliness, insight and insistence, during apartheid, about freedom of academe and the press.

Cowen on Law: Selected Essays spans more than 50 years of his lively, contentious and beautifully constructed texts. Leading legal thinkers introduce newly-accessible texts and provide us with a contemporary, evaluative lens. The book reveals to readers a fascinating mind. It also serves as an engrossing reflection on South Africa’s legal past as well as the intersection of law and society.

• Introduction - Laurie Ackermann
• The challenge of democracy - introduced by Arthur Chaskalson
• Since the law makes the king: Cowen and the constitutional crisis of the 1950s - introduced by Jeremy Gauntlett
• Principles of statutory interpretation - introduced by Pius Langa
• Jurisprudence - introduced by Dennis Davis
• Freedom of thought and its expression - introduced by Albie Sachs
• Academic freedom - introduced by Edwin Cameron
• Principles and practice of environmental law - introduced by Jan Glazewski
• Land ownership - introduced by Carole Lewis
• The control of competition - introduced by David Unterhalter
• Negotiable instruments - introduced by Charl Hugo and commented on by Benjamin Geva 
• Fleece on the hedges text fragments - introduced by Susannah Cowen
• A list of works