This collection of essays on habeas corpus throughout the Commonwealth explores the fortunes of the writ and the conditions under which it has either flourished or waned. Drawing on a wide range of commonwealth authorities, and including materials from the colonial period as well as from ex-commonwealth or ex-empire states, the papers in this volume consider the diffusion of the writ, the myths surrounding it, and the uses to which the writ has been put that distinguish the remedy from the English experience.