View source for Essay on Crimes and Punishments

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''An Essay on Crimes and Punishments''}}
===by Cesare Beccaria===
__NOTOC__
{{BookPageInfoBox
|imagename=BeccariaEssayOnCrimes1767.jpg
|link=https://catalog.swem.wm.edu/law/Record/1615347
|text=BeccariaEssayOnCrimesAndPunishments1767.pdf
|textsize=7MB
|shorttitle=An Essay on Crimes and Punishments
|author=Cesare Beccaria
|trans=With a commentary, attributed to Mons. de Voltaire
|publoc=London
|publisher=Printed for J. Almon
|year=1767
|lang=English
|pages=xii, 179, [1], lxxix, [1] 
|desc=8vo (21 cm.)
|shelf=C-4
}}A shy and retiring man prone to unpredictable moods and educated in the law as well as economics,<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica Online'', s.v. "[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57861/Cesare-Beccaria Cesare Beccaria]," accessed October 10, 2013.</ref> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Beccaria Cesare Beccaria] (1738-1794) was perhaps an unlikely figure to trigger a veritable revolution in criminology. As a young man, he fell in with brothers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Verri Pietro] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Verri Alessandro Verri] and their “academy of fists,”<ref>''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', s.v. "[http://www.iep.utm.edu/beccaria/ Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)]," accessed October 10, 2013.</ref> a Milanese organization referred to variously as an “intellectual circle”<ref>Ibid.</ref> and a “literary society,”<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica Online'', s.v. "Cesare Beccaria."</ref> through which Beccaria was initiated into Enlightenment thought.<ref>Ibid.</ref> The Verri brothers supplied the assignment and the insider knowledge of the criminal justice system of the day, and at the behest of this group, Becarria completed his famous essay ''On Crimes and Punishments'' in 1764.<ref>''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', s.v. "Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)."</ref><br />
[[File:BeccariaEssayOnCrimesAndPunishments1767Headpiece.jpg|left|thumb|400px|<center>Headpiece, first page of text.</center>]] 
In the time of its writing, Beccaria’s propositions that onerous punishments like torture and execution were unnecessarily cruel, disproportionate, and unlikely to serve as effective deterrents were novel. Although they owed a debt to his intellectual forebears,<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica Online'', s.v. "Cesare Beccaria."</ref> these ideas were both radical and attractive to the European political and intellectual elite.<ref>''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', s.v. "Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)."</ref> ''On Crimes and Punishments'' was rapidly translated into a host of other languages.<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica Online'', s.v. "Cesare Beccaria."</ref> As well as informing a number of state statutes in the United States,<ref>Ibid.</ref> in insisting upon a balance between fidelity to the social contract and the need to ensure that criminal punishment is useful and beneficial to society, the work can be said to prefigure one of today’s two dominant schools of penological thought—utilitarianism—as well as the death penalty abolition movement.<ref>''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', s.v. "Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)".</ref>

==Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library==
[[Dean Bibliography|Dean's Memo]]<ref>[[Dean Bibliography|Memorandum from Barbara C. Dean]], Colonial Williamsburg Found., to Mrs. Stiverson, Colonial Williamsburg Found. (June 16, 1975), 9 (on file at Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary).</ref> includes the 1767 English edition of ''An Essay on Crimes and Punishments'' based on a reference in [[Serene Patriot: A Life of George Wythe|William Clarkin's]] biography of Wythe. In discussing [[Thomas Jefferson|Thomas Jefferson's]] education under Wythe, Clarkin states "[w]e do know that Jefferson studied ... Beccaria's ''Crime and Punishment''" but Clarkin provides no source of corroborating evidence.<ref>William Clarkin, ''Serene Patriot: A Life of George Wythe'' (Albany, New York: Alan Publications, 1970), 42.</ref> Brown's Bibliography<ref>Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433.</ref> lists Beccaria's work in a choice of three languages (Italian, French, and English) and multiple editions. The Wolf Law Library purchased the first English edition as listed in Dean's memo.  
 
==Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy==
Marbled boards with leather corners rebacked in period-style calf with blind tooling and red label to spine. Purchased from Meyer Boswell Books, Inc.

View the record for this book in [https://catalog.swem.wm.edu/law/Record/1615347 William & Mary's online catalog].
[[File:BeccariaEssayOnCrimesAndPunishments1767InitialCapital.jpg|left|thumb|200px|<center>Initial capital, first page of text.</center>]] 

==See also==
*[[George Wythe Room]]
*[[Wythe's Library]]

==References==
<references/>

==External Links==
Read this book in [http://books.google.com/books?id=LXAGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover Google Books].

[[Category:Criminal Law]]
[[Category:George Wythe Collection at William & Mary's Wolf Law Library]]
[[Category:Titles in Wythe's Library]]