On Liberty and the Subjection of Women [Paperback]

Two cornerstones of liberalism from the great social radical of English philosophy

John Stuart Mill was a prodigious thinker who sharply challenged the beliefs of his age. InOn Liberty, one of the sacred texts of liberalism, he argues that any democracy risks becoming a tyranny of opinion in which minority views are suppressed if they do not conform to those of the majority.The Subjection of Women, written shortly after the death of Mill?s wife, Harriet, stresses the importance of sexual equality. Together they provide eloquent testimony to the hopes and anxieties of Victorian England, and offer a trenchant consideration of what it really means to be free.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.On Libertyremains a classic. . . . The present world would be better than it is if [MillÆs] principles were more respected. (Bertrand Russell)John Stuart Mill(1806-73) was educated by his father and through his influence obtained a clerkship at India House. He formed the Utilitarian Society which met to read and discuss essays, and in 1825 he edited Bentham’sTreatise upon Evidence. In 1826 he suffered an acute mental crisis and found that poetry helped him recover the will to live, particularly the work of Wordsworth. Having reconsidered his aims and those of the Benthamite school, he met Harriet Taylor and she inspired a great deal of his philosophy. They married in 1851.Utilitarianismwas published in 1861 but before that Mill published hisSystem of Logic(184ls%