«Merge Record #»«Title» - Susanne Schulz-Falster

gilt, gilt-lettered spine label; upper joint strengthened, head and tail of spine chipped; printed on
thick paper; a fine, wide-margined copy.
First edition, very uncommon, of Viscount Vilain XIIII's detailed proposals for a reform
of the prison system, combined with improvements in their financial administration and
accounting systems. Vilain (1712-1777), had made initial suggestions in 1771, as a result
of which the citadel of the Belgian city of Ghent was transformed into an enlightened
detention centre, combining prison, work-house, and house of correction. His system
combined isolation by night with communal work during the day. The inmates were
divided up according to the type and severity of their crimes. He also made some
innovative proposals on the commutation of sentences. He favoured the exercise of the
pardoning power with regulation by law of the conditions under which the prison
administrators were to recommend the pardon. This plan later found application in the
United States in Tennessee Act of 1836.
The work, however, is not just important in the field of prison reform, but even more so
in its innovative financial organisation. Vilain gives a precise introduction to double-entry
book-keeping for use in public accounts, with the specific provision that the prison
governor could at all times easily assess the profitability of the institution. Accounting
practices are applied to all aspects of the institution, not just the financial ones. He gives
detailed examples of day-book, journal, and end of year accounts.
In the second half the textile workshops run by the prison are described, again with clear
regulations as to their organisation and accounting. Stringent cost benefit calculations are
applied, before they can be introduced. A number of different types of workshops are
introduced and their profitability tested.
In his conclusion Vilain proposes the introduction of these workshops to guarantee
financial independence of the institution, and maintains that not only will criminals be
gainfully employed, but the problem of mendacity will also be reduced in the long term.
The finely engraved plates show plans of the prison, together with views and elevations.
A second edition was published in 1841.
Higgs 6469; not in Kress or Goldsmiths'; not in Historical Accounting Literature, not in Herwood, or
Stevelinck; see M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir, p. 124; OCLC/RLIN list copies at Berkeley, Chicago, Yale,
Cornell, Duke, Tulane and the University of Wisconsin, in addition to European locations.
Votlaire's Anglomania
77.
VOLTAIRE, François Marie Arouet de. Letters concerning the English Nation. London,
Printed [by William Bowyer] for C. Davis and A. Lyon, 1733. $2000
8vo, pp. [xiv], [ii] advertisements, 253, [1] blank, [18] index; contemporary full panelled calf, spine in
compartments, with gilt-lettered spine label, rebacked with original spine laid down; from the library
of Sir Henry Streatfield, Chiddingstone Castle, Kent, with his manuscript ownership inscription to
head of title, armorial bookplate to front pastedown and his price not 4 - 6, 1736 on front free
endpaper; a clean and crisp copy.
First edition of this fascinating volume of great philosophical and scientific interest, and
in fact, mostly not a translation but written by Voltaire in English and for an English
market, as a kind of testimony of his love of 'things English'. Buruma observes that he