The late Catherine Fuller - Böcker

This eleventh volume of Bentham's Correspondence contains nearly three hundred letters, and covers the period from January 1822 to June 1824. The letters, most of which have never before been published, have been collected from archives, private and official, as far afield as Athens and Bogotá, as well as from the collections of Bentham Papers at University College London and the British Library. By the early 1820s Bentham had acquired an international reputation, and corresponded with leading figures in Europe, the United States of America, and many of the newly independent states of Central and South America. His correspondents included such notable figures as Simón Bolívar, the Liberator of South America; Jean Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti; José da Silva Carvalho, Minister of Justice in Portugal; Étienne Dumont, Bentham's Genevan editor; Bernardino Rivadavia, first President of the United Provinces of Río de la Plata; Jean Baptiste Say, the economist; and members of the provisional government of Greece. Bentham also corresponded with numerous public figures and personal friends in Britain, including Edward Blaquiere, James Silk Buckingham, Richard Carlile, John Cartwright, Rowland and Matthew Davenport Hill, James Mill, Samuel Parr, Francis Place, Leicester Stanhope, and Frances Wright. As well as covering such matters as the launch of the Westminster Review, and his first plan for the Auto-Icon, the volume testifies to the growing importance to Bentham of his writings on codification. Having received news that the Portuguese Cortes had accepted his offer to draw up a complete code of laws, he began to draft material for his Constitutional Code. He became involved in promoting constitutional reform in Tripoli and Greece, and was extensively involved in the negotiations surrounding the Greek Loan raised in London in 1824.

This twelfth volume of Correspondence contains authoritative and fully annotated texts of all known letters sent both to and from Bentham between July 1824 and June 1828. The 301 letters, most of which have never before been published, have been collected from archives, public and private, in Britain, the United States of America, Switzerland, France, Japan, and elsewhere, as well as from the major collections of Bentham Papers at University College London Library and the British Library.In mid-1824 Bentham was still preoccupied with the Greek struggle for independence against Turkey, though his active involvement waned as he became disenchanted with the behaviour of the deputies sent to London by the Greek National Assembly. His international reputation was reflected in his continuing contact with Simón Bolívar and Bernardino Rivadavia in South America, and with John Quincy Adams, John Neal, Henry Wheaton, and others in the United States, and his forging of new contacts in Guatemala, India, and Egypt. In the autumn of 1825 he visited France, where he stayed with Jean Baptiste Say and La Fayette, and was fêted by the French liberals.Bentham made considerable progress drafting material for his pannomion, or complete code of laws, and in particular for his Constitutional and Procedure Codes, while John Stuart Mill edited the massive Rationale of Judicial Evidence. Bentham became increasingly active in the cause of law reform, and exchanged a series of letters on the subject with Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, and Henry Brougham. He maintained his friendships with John and Sarah Austin, George and Harriet Grote, James and John Stuart Mill, John Bowring, Joseph Hume, Francis Burdett, Francis Place, and Joseph Parkes, re-established contact with the third Marquis of Lansdowne, son of his old friend the first Marquis, and made new acquaintances in James Humphreys, Sutton Sharpe, and Albany Fonblanque.