The picture of the early perception of English common law in Germany is still quite blurred. From the 17th century on, English constitutional matters and political philosophy attracted the attention of German academics. But it is not until around 1750 that interest stirred in English private and criminal law. Due to its close connections with the Hanoverian court, Göttingen soon established itself as the epicentre of this early German academic anglophilia. Even though around that time England had begun to feature on travel maps of the grand tour, few German scholars had sufficient command of the English language to engage with original British literature. Initially, interested German legal academics therefore often had to rely on translations of English works into Latin, German or French. One of the earliest German treatises on English law, Christian Hartmann Samuel Gatzert’s Latin Commentatio iuris exotici historico-litteraria de iure communi Angliae. Of the Common Law of England (Göttingen 1765), is testament to this. But other literary products had paved the way to Gatzert’s Commentatio: the literature reviews of the bustling scene of learned journals. Using the example of the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen (first published in 1739), the paper addresses the question how German learned journals treated contemporary publications on English law. It analyses the challenges faced by the reviewers, amongst others a problematic continental-legal perspective and grave misunderstandings concerning the English legal system, and assesses the role the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen played in disseminating knowledge about English law and in offering a wider German readership glimpses at a foreign legal system, c. 1739–1775.