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16 BENTHAM, Jeremy. Théorie des peines et des récompenses. London: Vogel and Schulze, and B. Dulau and Co., 1811 Bentham promotes his ideas on the continent First edition of Bentham’s French work on crime and punishment, an attempt to promote his ideas on the continent. The work was edited, arranged and translated by his Swiss collaborator Étienne Dumont, from two sets of manuscripts by Bentham, one in English, the other in Bentham’s own French. The work was not published in English until 1825. “Samuel Bentham, Jeremy’s brother, had long been urging Bentham to translate, or get translated into French, his writings on legislation, in order that his name and views might be better known on the Continent; but Bentham could not afford to employ a good translator and was reluctant to complete the task himself. Dumont’s arrival on the scene, therefore, and his willingness to become a disciple of Bentham were heaven-sent . . . Bentham has humorously told us ‘that the plan was that Dumont should take my half-finished manuscripts as he found them, half English, half English-French and make what he could of them in Genevan-French without giving me any further trouble about the matter. Instead of that, the lazy rogue comes to me with everything that he writes, and teazes me to fill up every gap he has observed.’ [x. 313.] Bowring says that Dumont scarcely ever failed to make Bentham attractive by the graces of his own style and by an infusion of commonplaces, of everyday knowledge and of familiar illustrations. Dumont himself wrote to Bentham: ‘You are too metaphysical, you write for too small a class. I must be more diffuse – more explanatory.’ However, as a result of the delays consequent on the French Revolution and Dumont’s own laziness, it was 1802 before
the Traités de Législation Civile et Pénale was published in Paris in three volumes, and 1811 when Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses followed in two volumes” (Muirhead). 2 volumes, octavo (211 × 125 mm). Contemporary quarter calf, spines decorated and lettered gilt, marbled sides. Library shelfmark in blue ink to front free endpapers. Spines lightly faded, light wear to spine ends and corners. A very good copy. ¶ Chuo T4.1; Everett, p. 531; Goldsmiths’ 20380; Muirhead, p. 17. £1,750 [98719] 17 BENTHAM, Jeremy. Constitutional Code; for the Use of all Nations and all Governments professing Liberal Opinions. Vol. I [all published.] London: Printed for the Author, and published by Robert Heward, 1830 Establishing Bentham “as a major theorist of constitutional democracy” First edition, all published, of Bentham’s Constitutional Code , the only edition published in his lifetime. “The massive, unfinished Constitutional Code , the major work of his final decade, established Bentham as a major theorist of constitutional democracy” (Rosen & Burns, p. xliv). He drafted the Code , aptly subtitled “For the use of All Nations and All Governments professing Liberal Opinions”, after receiving a concrete invitation to do so from the Portuguese Cortes, and hoped to see it adopted in Portugal, Greece, and several Latin American countries. “The publication of the first volume of the Code . . . was a relatively small affair. According to some financial accounts Bentham received from Robert Heward, the publisher, fifty copies of the Code were boarded and sewn in 1830 with three copies reported sold in 1830 and ten in 1831” (ibid., p. xlii).
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