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Secondary sourceBook1838–1843

The Works of Jeremy Bentham (Bowring edition)

Jeremy Bentham; edited by John Bowring · 1838–1843

An eleven-volume collection of Bentham's writings, edited after his death by his friend and executor John Bowring.

This posthumous collection preserved and standardised Bentham's writings for later generations.

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Dark brown cloth book cover with a white library label reading B 663,069 and DUPL in the upper left. Small text in the lower corners reads Digitized by Google and Original from University of Michigan.
Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. John Bowring, 1838–1843. British Library.

About this source

What it is

An eleven-volume edition of Jeremy Bentham's writings, published between 1838 and 1843. It was edited by Bentham's friend and literary executor, John Bowring, who also included a memoir of Bentham's life. A copy is held by the British Library.

Why it matters

Because Bentham left behind a huge mass of unfinished and unorganised manuscripts, Bowring's task was to gather, arrange and publish them after Bentham's death. For a century this edition was the main way readers encountered Bentham's ideas, shaping how he was remembered as a philosopher of law and reform. It also reveals how much of Bentham's legacy depended on the work of others who organised his unfinished papers.

Look closer

  • What challenges would an editor face trying to organise someone else's unfinished notes into books?
  • How might Bowring's choices about arrangement have shaped how later readers understood Bentham?
  • Why is it useful to know who edited and compiled a collection like this?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Jeremy Bentham on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Dark blue cloth book cover with a white rectangular library label on the left spine area reading Trinity College Library, with a barcode and number 31761 02710574 1 printed vertically.Book

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Jeremy Bentham · 1776

Full-length oil portrait of an elderly man with long white hair, seated in a carved wooden armchair in a dark brown fur-trimmed robe over a white shirt. A table at left holds leather-bound books, an inkwell, papers, and a rolled document against a dark background.Painting

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