Jeremy Bentham's Auto-icon and Related Writings

If you go to University College, London, you can still see the grisly spectacle of Jeremy Bentham's preserved skeleton sitting inside a glass cabinet, dressed in his own clothes. When he died in 1832, the father of Utilitarianism left instructions that his corpse remain permanently on display as an "Auto-Icon" (self-representation). Why did Bentham want this? Was it simply self-importance - or perhaps a black sense of humour - or did Bentham have some more principled reason? This volume gives scholars the chance to answer these questions. At its heart is Bentham's little-known justification for auto-icons, "Auto-Icon: Or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living", of which 20 copies were printed and privately circulated in 1842. James E. Crimmins's introduction demonstrates its authenticity and provides details of the medical, philosophical and religious contexts of Bentham's thoughts on auto-iconiza-tion.
The volume also contains Bentham's will (never before published), news reports of Bentham's dissection by Thomas Southwood Smith, and publications by Southwood Smith about the agitation for reform of the laws concerning anatomical dissection and Bentham's personal role in this enterprise. The book should be of value for Bentham specialists, medical historians, and scholars with an interest in religious and secular iconization in the 18th and 19th centuries.