Editing Jeremy Bentham (section)

=== Posthumous publications ===
On his death, Bentham left manuscripts amounting to an estimated 30 million words, which are now largely held by [[University College London's Special Collections]] ({{circa|60,000}} [[manuscript]] [[folio]]s) and the [[British Library]] ({{circa|15,000}} folios). University College London also holds a collection of c.500 books either by, about, or owned by Jeremy Bentham.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |date=2018-08-23 |title=Bentham Book Collection |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/bentham |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=UCL Special Collections |language=en}}</ref>

==== Bowring (1838–1843) ====
[[John Bowring]], the young radical writer who had been Bentham's intimate friend and disciple, was appointed his [[literary executor]] and charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works. This appeared in 11 volumes in 1838–1843. Bowring based much of his edition on previously published texts (including those of Dumont) rather than Bentham's own manuscripts, and elected not to publish Bentham's works on religion at all. The edition was described by the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' on first publication as "incomplete, incorrect and ill-arranged", and has since been repeatedly criticised both for its omissions and for errors of detail; while Bowring's memoir of Bentham's life included in volumes 10 and 11 was described by Sir [[Leslie Stephen]] as "one of the worst biographies in the language".{{sfn|Bartle|1963|p=27}} Nevertheless, Bowring's remained the standard edition of most of Bentham's writings for over a century, and is still only partially superseded: it includes such interesting writings on international{{efn|a word [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/tools/neologisms Bentham himself coined]}} relations as Bentham's [[A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace]] written 1786–89, which forms part IV of the [[Principles of International Law]].

==== Stark (1952–1954) ====
In 1952–1954, [[Werner Stark]] published a three-volume set, ''Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings'', in which he attempted to bring together all of Bentham's writings on economic matters, including both published and unpublished material. Although a significant achievement, the work is considered by scholars to be flawed in many points of detail,{{sfn|Schofield|2009a|pp=475–494}} and a new edition of the economic writings (retitled ''Writings on Political Economy'') is currently in course of publication by the Bentham Project.

==== Bentham Project (1968–present) ====
{{further|The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham|Transcribe Bentham}}
In 1959, the Bentham Committee was established under the auspices of University College London with the aim of producing a definitive edition of Bentham's writings. It set up the Bentham Project<ref name="UCL3" /> to undertake the task, and the first volume in ''[[The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham]]'' was published in 1968. The ''Collected Works'' are providing many unpublished works, as well as much-improved texts of works already published. To date, 38 volumes have appeared; the complete edition is projected to total 80.<ref>{{cite book |first=Philip |last=Schofield |chapter=General preface to the new editions |title=The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 1: 1752–1776 |editor-first=Timothy L. S. |editor-last=Sprigge |editor-link=Timothy Sprigge |publisher=UCL Press |place=London |orig-date=1968 |year=2017 |page=vi |isbn=978-1911576051 |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/the-correspondence-of-jeremy-bentham-volume-one }}</ref> The volume ''Of Laws in General'' (1970) was found to contain many errors and has been replaced by ''Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence'' (2010){{sfn|Schofield|2013|pp=51–70}} In 2017, Volumes 1–5 were re-published in open access by UCL Press.<ref name="e964">{{cite web | title=The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham | website=Bentham Project | date=May 17, 2018 | url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/collected-works-jeremy-bentham | access-date=May 10, 2024}}</ref>

To assist in this task, the Bentham papers at UCL are being digitised by crowdsourcing their transcription. [[Transcribe Bentham]] is a [[crowdsourced]] manuscript transcription project, run by [[University College London]]'s Bentham Project,<ref name="UCL4" /> in partnership with UCL's [[UCL Centre for Digital Humanities]], UCL Library Services, UCL Learning and Media Services, the [[University of London Computer Centre]], and the online community. The project was launched in September 2010 and is making freely available, via a specially designed transcription interface, digital images of UCL's vast Bentham Papers collection—which runs to some 60,000 manuscript folios—to engage the public and recruit volunteers to help transcribe the material. Volunteer-produced transcripts will contribute to the Bentham Project's production of the new edition of ''The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham'', and will be uploaded to UCL's digital Bentham Papers repository,<ref name="UCL5" /> widening access to the collection for all and ensuring its long-term preservation. Manuscripts can be viewed and transcribed by signing-up for a transcriber account at the Transcription Desk,<ref name="UCL6" /> via the Transcribe Bentham website.<ref name="UCL7" />

Free, flexible textual search of the full collection of Bentham Papers is now possible through an experimental handwritten text image indexing and search system,<ref name="PRHLTsearch" /> developed by the PRHLT research center in the framework of the READ project.