The correspondence of Jeremy Bentham. Vol. 5 January 1794 to December 1797 - Jeremy Bentham

The first five volumes of the Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham contain over 1,300 letters written both to and from Bentham over a 50-year period, beginning in1752 (aged three) with his earliest surviving letter to his grandmother, and endingin 1797 with correspondence concerning his attempts to set up a national schemefor the provision of poor relief. Against the background of the debates on theAmerican Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, to which he madesignificant contributions, Bentham worked first on producing a complete penalcode, which involved him in detailed explorations of fundamental legal ideas,and then on his panopticon prison scheme. Despite developing a host of originaland ground-breaking ideas, contained in a mass of manuscripts, he publishedlittle during these years, and remained, at the close of this period, arelatively obscure individual. Nevertheless, these volumes reveal how thefoundations were laid for the remarkable rise of Benthamite utilitarianism inthe early nineteenth century.

Bentham's life in the mid-1790s was dominated by thepanopticon, both as a prison and as a network of workhouses for the indigent.The letters in this volume document in excruciating detail Bentham's attempt tobuild a panopticon prison in London, and the opposition he faced from localaristocratic landowners. Hisbrother Samuel was appointed as Inspector-General of Naval Works and inSeptember 1796 married Mary Sophia Fordyce.