About

The Oxford Francis Bacon project aims to produce a new 15-volume critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon (1561–1626), the Elizabethan-Jacobean lawyer, natural philosopher, and statesman. It aims therefore to replace the great but now outdated Victorian edition produced by Spedding, Ellis and Heath, and for the first time to publish a number of manuscript works unknown to them. In the process we hope to improve and advance critical-editorial techniques at the very highest level; provide brand-new facing-page translations for the edited texts of the Latin works; and reintegrate Bacon’s work into the study of early modern philosophy, science, historiography, legal thought, and literature.

Originally the brainchild of the late Professor Graham Rees, the project now belongs to the British Academy’s portfolio and the work is being carried out by an international team of scholars supported by an advisory board chaired by Professor Sir Brian Vickers. So far six volumes have been published – four of which comprise Graham Rees’s revolutionary editions of Bacon’s Latin philosophical writings – and work is proceeding apace on the others. In sum, we aim to transform our knowledge of the Baconian corpus in new and exciting ways that speak to students and scholars across all relevant disciplines.

See also the Plan of the Edition and Editorial Board webpages.

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