Author Description

This is the ninth volume of the Correspondence produced in the new edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. The letters--the vast majority of which have never before been published--date from the period of January 1817 to June 1820 and illustrate many aspects of Bentham's public and private life. The composition, editing, printing, publishing, and receipt of several of his writings are discussed, while the correspondence with his secretary and protege, John Herbert Koe, gives a unique insight to Bentham's working methods. The proposed Chrestomathic School is the subject of many of the letters of 1820, though even in that year Bentham's involvement in the world of radical politics emerges clearly. The volume also testifies to his burgeoning international reputation, and to his interest in reform in North and South America, Russia, Spain, France, and Geneva.