The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham

The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham is a series of volumes which, when complete, will form a definitive edition of the writings of the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). It includes texts which Bentham published (or which were published in his name) during his lifetime; and also the many texts which remained unpublished at his death, and which exist only in manuscript.

Scope and history

The Collected Works is intended to supersede the 11-volume The Works of Jeremy Bentham (1838–1843), edited by Bentham's friend and literary executor, John Bowring, which is now considered to be flawed in many points of detail, and which omits Bentham's writings on religion; and also the 3-volume Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings (1952–54) edited by Werner Stark, which has likewise been subject to criticism.[1]

The series is being published under the auspices of the Bentham Project at University College London, whose library holds the majority of Bentham's surviving manuscripts. Since 2010 the Project has also run Transcribe Bentham, a project for transcribing Bentham's manuscripts through crowdsourcing, the output of which is intended, once edited, to appear in future Collected Works volumes.

The Bentham Project is governed by the Bentham Committee, which was established in 1959. The first volume in the Collected Works appeared in 1968, and to date 30 volumes have been published of a projected total of about 70. The series was published from 1968 until 1981 by the Athlone Press (the University of London's publishing house); and since 1983 by Oxford University Press under its Clarendon Press imprint.

General Editors

The General Editors of the series have been: J.H. Burns (1961-79); J.R. Dinwiddy (1977-83); Fred Rosen (1983-94); Fred Rosen and Philip Schofield (1995-2003); and Philip Schofield (2003-date).

Published volumes

The series divides into two sequences, the Correspondence (of which 12 volumes have appeared of an eventual 14); and the Works. The Works volumes are not sequentially numbered.

Those volumes which have been published to date are as follows:

Correspondence

Works

References

  1. Schofield, Philip (2009). "Werner Stark and Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings". History of European Ideas 35: 475–494. doi:10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2009.05.003.

External links