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• Introduction
• The Autobiography
• Literary Essays
• Appendices
• Textual Principles and Methods
• Acknowledgments
• Autobiography and Literary Essays
• Autobiography Parallel Reading Texts of the Early Draft and the Columbia Ms
• Editors’ Note
• [early Draft]
• [yale Fragment]
• Chapter I: Childhood, and Early Education
• Chapter II: Moral Influences In Early Youth. My Father’s Character and Opinions
• Chapter III: Last Stage of Education, and First of Self-education
• Chapter IV: Youthful Propagandism. the Westminster Review
• Chapter V: A Crisis In My Mental History. One Stage Onward
• Chapter VI: Commencement of the Most Valuable Friendship of My Life. My Father’s Death. Writings and Other Proceedings Up to 1840
• Chapter VII: General View of the Remainder of My Life
• Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review 1824
• Editors’ Note
• Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review
• On Genius 1832
• Editors’ Note
• On Genius
• Thoughts On Poetry and Its Varieties 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Thoughts On Poetry and Its Varieties
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [i] 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [i]
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [ii] 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [ii]
• Views of the Pyrenees 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Views of the Pyrenees
• Tennyson’s Poems 1835
• Editors’ Note
• Tennyson’s Poems
• Aphorisms: Thoughts In the Cloister and the Crowd 1837
• Editors’ Note
• Aphorisms: Thoughts In the Cloister and the Crowd
• Ware’s Letters From Palmyra 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Ware’s Letters From Palmyra
• Writings of Alfred De Vigny 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Alfred De Vigny
• Milnes’s Poems 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Milnes’s Poems
• Milnes’s Poetry For the People 1840
• Editors’ Note
• Milnes’s Poetry For the People
• Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome 1843
• Editors’ Note
• Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome
• Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, On James Mill 1844
• Editors’ Note
• Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, On James Mill[*]
• Appendices
• Appendix A: Juvenilia
• The History of Rome By John Stuart Mill Aged 6½ Yrs
• Appendix B: Mill’s Early Reading, 1809-22
• Appendix C: Mill’s Early Writing, 1811?-22
• Appendix D: A Few Observations On Mr. Mill (1833)
• Appendix E: Browning’s Pauline (1833)
• Appendix F: Editorial Notes In the London and Westminster Review
• Appendix H: Helen Taylor’s Continuation of the Autobiography
• Appendix I: Bibliographic Index of Persons and Works Cited, With Variants and Notes

TEXTUAL PRINCIPLES AND METHODS

as throughout this edition, the copy-text for each item is the final version produced under Mill’s personal supervision, the latest over which he had significant authorial control.¹⁰² For the Autobiography this means the Columbia MS, since Mill never saw the Rylands transcript of it, or of course the first printed edition. (The Early Draft text presented here on facing pages may, in this view, be considered a single long variant, though it also has claims to independent status as a once complete and wholly authoritative version.) For the rest of the items (except for material given in Appendices A, E, G, and H) there are no extant MSS, and the source of text in each case is a printed version.

Silent emendations. The following procedures apply to all the texts alike. Typographical peculiarities of titles, chapter headings, first lines, and some other features that similarly are matters of printing design are not strictly preserved. While as a rule the copy-text’s punctuation and spelling are retained, certain elements of style have been made uniform: for example, periods have regularly been inserted, where they are missing, after abbreviations, but have been deleted after references to monarchs (e.g., “Louis XIV,”); and dashes have been deleted where they are combined with other punctuation before a quotation or a reference. Italic punctuation following italic letters (in a printed version) has been regularized to roman. Indications of ellipsis have been normalized to three dots plus, where necessary, terminal punctuation. The positioning of footnote indicators has been normalized so that they always follow adjacent punctuation marks; in some cases, for consistency of appearance, references have been moved from the beginning to the end of quotations.

Also in accordance with modern practice, all long quotations have been set off from the text, in reduced type, with opening and closing quotation marks removed. In consequence, it has occasionally been necessary to add square brackets around Mill’s own editorial interpolations; but there will be little likelihood of confusion, because our own editorial insertions in the texts are strictly confined to page references (we have deleted Mill’s square brackets in the one place—p. 474n—that would have caused trouble). Double quotation marks replace single as the standard. Titles of works referred to in the text have been italicized or enclosed in quotation marks according to a uniform style, and occasionally a lower-cased word in a title has been silently capitalized. Mill’s references to sources, and additional page references supplied editorially (in square brackets), have been normalized. Erroneous references have regularly been corrected; a list of corrections and other alterations is given in the note below.¹⁰³

Treatment of MS texts. In the texts edited from MSS—the Autobiography and the Early Draft (as well as in the textual notes to those items and the MS materials printed in Appendices A, E, G, and H)—these further silent procedures apply. Superscript letters in “20^th,” “M^cCrie’s,” “M^r,” and the like have been regularly lowered to the line. Initial capitals of words that originally began a sentence but in revision were rearranged into some other position within a sentence have been reduced to lower case. Periods have been added, where they are missing, at the ends of sentences. Commas and in a few instances other marks of punctuation have been added, where necessary or especially desirable, mainly to complete Mill’s intended revision—as before or after an interlined phrase or clause, and before a deleted conjunction—but also in combination with other devices (the end of the line in the MS, or a closing parenthesis or quotation mark) that Mill characteristically used as a substitute for more conventional punctuation. Very occasionally, as when an opening parenthesis appears intended to cancel a mark, punctuation has been dropped. The ampersand has regularly been changed to “and,” and we have spelled out most arabic numbers (and added conventional hyphens in some that were already spelled out). Editorial emendations to the texts of the Autobiography and Early Draft that are not covered by these general procedures are listed in the note below.¹⁰⁴ In the headnotes to the essays, the quotations from Mill’s personal bibliography, which survives in a scribal copy in the Mill-Taylor Collection, British Library of Political and Economic Science, have regularly been corrected; again, a note below lists the corrections.¹⁰⁵

Textual notes to the MSS. The textual apparatus to the Early Draft provides a selection of the most significant earlier and cancelled readings that illuminate Mill’s education, his reading and writing, and his relationships with his father, mother, siblings, and wife. Sometimes, especially in conjunction with Appendix G, which should be considered an extension of this apparatus, several successive versions may be reconstructed (e.g., the five accounts of Mill’s practical deficiencies, three of them extracted or described at pp. 608-11 below, the other two in the Early Draft and Columbia MS texts at pp. 32-3, 37, 39): and the influence of Mill’s wife, in alterations, queries, and other markings pencilled in the MS, is given special attention. The simplified methodology used in these textual notes is explained in the headnote on p. 2. It should be understood that the descriptions “deleted first by HTM” and “altered to final reading first by HTM” mean that the deletion or revision at hand originated with her, and that Mill accepted it by going over the pencilled alteration in ink (no change by her, if Mill himself did not subsequently alter the words, has been incorporated into the text). Only two cancelled passages are given from the Columbia MS (on pp. 272, 287). For the most part, the cancelled readings in the first 162 leaves of this later version are identical, or nearly so, with the Early Draft text that we print on facing pages; and in the final section of the MS, which is first draft, Mill was no longer writing intimately about his father or his wife, or any other matter where ambiguous personal feelings were involved, and his deletions and revisions here are routinely stylistic, and not of sufficient interest to deserve recording.

Emendation of printed sources. In the items based on printed sources, typographical errors have been regularly corrected in the text. The note below lists these along with other readings that have been emended.¹⁰⁶

Textual apparatus for the essays. As indicated in an earlier section of this Introduction, only four of the essays were reprinted by Mill (in two cases only a brief passage is involved), and so there are relatively few variants to record. The ensuing paragraphs explain the methods of indicating variants in these instances and more generally throughout this edition.

We are concerned primarily with substantive variants, which may be taken to mean any differences among comparable texts except those in punctuation, spelling, capitalization, word-division, demonstrable typographical errors, and such printing-house concerns as type size and style. All substantive variants are reported, save for the substitution of “on” for “upon” (in five places), “an” for “a” (twice before “historical” and once before “heroic”), and “though” for “although” (twice).¹⁰⁷ The variants are of three kinds: addition of a word or words, substitution of a word or words, and deletion of a word or words. The illustrative examples that follow are drawn, except as indicated, from “Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties,” for which our copy-text is the version printed in 1867.

Addition of a word or words: see p. 356^g-g. In the present text the passage “Whatever be the thing which they are contemplating, if it be capable of connecting itself with their emotions, the aspect” appears as “Whatever be the thing which they are contemplating, ^gif it be capable of connecting itself with their emotions,^g the aspect”; and the variant note reads “^g-g+59,67”. The plus sign shows that the passage enclosed by the superscripts in the text is an addition, and the numbers after the plus sign specify the editions in which the passage is included. The editions are indicated by the last two digits of the year of publication: here 59 = 1859 and 67 = 1867 (respectively, the 1st and 2nd editions of Volumes I and II of Dissertations and Discussions). Information explaining the use of these abbreviations is given in the headnotes, as required. Any editorial comment in the variant notes is enclosed in square brackets and italicized.

When this example is placed in context, the interpretation is that the first published text (1833) had “Whatever be the thing which they are contemplating, the aspect”; in 1859 this was altered to “Whatever be the thing which they are contemplating, if it be capable of connecting itself with their emotions, the aspect”; and (as is evident in the present text) the new reading was retained in 1867.

Substitution of a word or words: see p. 356^f-f. In the text the passage “which is a natural though not an universal consequence of” appears as “which is ^fa natural though not an universal consequence^f of”; the variant note reads “^f-f33 one of the natural consequences”. Here the words following the edition indicator are those for which “a natural though not an universal consequence” was substituted. When the same rules are applied and the variant is placed in context, the interpretation is that the first published text had “which is one of the natural consequences of”; in 1859 this was altered to “which is a natural though not an universal consequence of”; and the reading of 1859 (as is evident in the text) was retained in 1867.

In this volume there are only rare and trivial instances where passages were altered more than once: at p. 343^b-b, the first published text has “ ‘poetry’ does import”; in 1859 Mill changed this to “ ‘poetry’ imports”; and in 1867 he removed the quotation marks from “poetry” to give the final reading, “poetry imports”, which appears in this edition as “^bpoetry imports^b”. To indicate this sequence, the note reads “^b-b33 ‘poetry’ does import] 59 ‘poetry’ imports” (the closing square bracket separates variants in a sequence). In the other cases, the variant represents a return to the original reading, as at p. 473^z-z, where in 1838 “these” appeared; in 1859, “those”; and in 1867, “these” again. Here the note indicates, as well as the sequence, the possibility of a typographical error: “^z-z59 those [printer’s error?]”.

Deletion of a word or words: see p. 356^b and p. 422^f-f. The first of these is typical, representing a convenient way of indicating deletions in a later version. In the text at p. 356^b a single superscript b appears centred between “in” and “a”; the variant note reads “^b33 the table of contents of”. Here the words following the edition indicator are the ones subsequently deleted. The interpretation is that the first published text had “in the table of contents of a”; in 1859 the words “the table of contents of” were deleted; and the reading of 1859 (as is evident in the text) was retained in 1867.

The second example (p. 422^f-f) illustrates the method used to cover deletions when only portions of the text were later reprinted, as in the case of “Aphorisms: Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd,” part of which was republished as “Aphorisms. A Fragment,” in Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. I, pp. 206-10. (That is, there is here, exceptionally, a later version of only part of the text originally published in the London and Westminster Review [1837], which, being the only complete version, we adopt as our copy-text; normally the copy-text would be the latest version.) In the text the words “appears to us to be” are printed “appears ^fto us^f to be”; the variant note reads “^f-f-59,67”. The minus sign indicates that in the editions specified the words enclosed were deleted. The interpretation is that the first published version had (as is evident in the text) “appears to us to be”; in 1859 this was altered to “appears to be”; and the latter reading was retained in 1867.

Differences between italic and roman type are treated as substantive variants and therefore are regularly recorded, except when they occur in foreign phrases and titles of works. Although variations in punctuation and spelling are generally ignored, when they occur as part of a substantive variant they are included in the record of the variant. The superscript letters used to indicate variants to the text are placed exactly with reference to their position before or after punctuation.

Variants in Mill’s footnotes are treated in the same manner as those in his text. In the essays in this volume no footnotes were added or deleted in the reprinted versions.

[102 ]The rationale for this practice is set forth in John M. Robson, “Principles and Methods in the Collected Edition of John Stuart Mill,” in Robson, ed., Editing Nineteenth-Century Texts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), pp. 96-122.

[103 ]Following the page and line notation, the first reference is Mill’s identification in the copy-text, the corrected identification (that which appears in the present text) follows after a closing square bracket. We do not indicate places where a dash has been substituted for a comma to show continuity onto adjacent pages, or where a volume number has been added to the reference.

301.16 p. 28] Pp. 27-8

309n.1 p. 23] Pp. 22-3

310n.11 p. 184] Pp. 184-5

313.38 p. 343] Pp. 343-4

324n.18 p. 183] 483

426.30 p. 26] Pp. 26-7

427.19 p. 23] Pp. 23-5

428.18-19 p. 46] Pp. 45-6

433n.2 p. 216] Pp. 216-17

450.26 pp. 39, 40] Pp. 39-42

[104 ]The MS reading is given first, followed by the emended reading in square brackets:

29.3 think [think it] [Mill inadvertently deleted “it” in revision]

29.9 with [with which] [word omitted between pages]

55.4 with in education [with] [inadvertent repetition of phrase]

74.10-11 the to discussions [the discussions] [word left undeleted in revision]

74.30 politics [politics,]

82.16 society [society,]

90.2 H. [House]

94.14 H. [House]

118.6 is being itself [being itself] [word left undeleted in revision]

134.29 urged [urged)]

150.18 mountains [mountains,]

152.30 Byron [Byron,]

158.8 H. [House]

161.35 character, [character;]

174.24 modes modes [modes] [repetition of word at beginning of new page]

193.21 according [according to]

219.24 case [case,]

223.3 unpropitious [unpropitious,]

227.15 me [me,]

228.8 enlarged enlarged [enlarged] [repetition of word at beginning of new page]

238.20 to not to [not to]

240.12 The [the]

241.30 opinion [opinion,]

242.17 Govt [Government]

253.19 me [me,]

253.19 not [not,]

255n.9 Système [Cours]

262.39 men [men,] [restoring deleted comma]

265.19 whom [whom,]

266.23 population [population,]

266.30 Abolitionists [Abolitionists,]

268.1 U. [United]

268.9 1861 [1862]

269.6 certainly [certainly,]

278.38 press [press,]

285.19-20 daughter . . . Taylor [daughter, . . . Taylor,]

288.24 seems [seems,]

[105 ]In a few cases our reading of the MS differs from that in the edition by Ney MacMinn, J. M. McCrimmon, and J. R. Hainds, Bibliography of the Published Writings of J. S. Mill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1945), to which page references (as MacMinn) are given in the headnotes. The corrected scribal errors (the erroneous reading first, with the correction following in square brackets) are:

328.3 f. [for]

328.4 ‘On Genius and signed Antiquus’ [‘On Genius’ and signed ‘Antiquus’]

342.5-6 ‘what is poetry’ [‘What Is Poetry’]

342.6 Antiguus [Antiquus]

342.6 1833 [1833)]

342.7 Antiguus [Antiquus]

368.8 Redivierus [Redivivus]

380.10 Redivierus [Redivivus]

392.8 News [Views]

420.7 running to the [running title]

432.8 Palmyro [Palmyra]

504.10 Milne’ [Milnes’]

518.5 Milne’s [Milnes’]

534.5 indication [vindication]

[106 ]Typographical errors in variant printed versions are ignored. For items where Mill himself made MS corrections, “SC” = his library, Somerville College, Oxford. The following are emended (the reading of the copy-text is given first, followed by the emended reading in square brackets):

297.2 nntouched [untouched]

299.32 stated [stated,] [as in quotation above, and for sense]

301n.2 ) [)]

301n.4 had [bad]

306.15 ) [)]

307.12 three pence [threepence] [as elsewhere in sentence]

309.21 P. 283. [reference mistakenly given before the passage which it locates]

311.20 pages, [pages] [for sense]

314.35 question [question.]

315.1 that under, the [that, under the]

316.1 Even, [Even]

316.33 istelf [itself]

319.32 place [place.”] [restyled in this ed.]

319n.1 Johnson s [Johnson’s]

319n.1 Works [Works.]

319n.2 pp. 146, 147 [pp. 146-7.]

324n.2 ‘ [“]

334.39 an inferiority [our inferiority] [corrected by Mill in SC copy]

336.15-16 as, a preparation for [as a preparation for,] [corrected by Mill in SC copy]

343.1 1 [I]

343.12 though [through] [as in 33,59, and for sense]

348.26 appear [appears] [as in 33,59]

351.11 pii [fui] [correction indicated by Mill in SC copy of “What Is Poetry?” and made in 59]

353n.24 œsthetic [æsthetic]

354n.2-3 a loveliness, a cheerfulness, a wildness, a melancholy, a terror [or loveliness, or cheerfulness, or wildness, or melancholy, or terror] [correction indicated by Mill in SC copy of “What Is Poetry?”]

362.11 this [This] [as in 33, and to conform with 362.25]

363.4 this is ‘exaggeration,’ [“this is exaggeration,”] [as in 33,59]

370.4 some [sore] [corrected by Mill in SC copy]

371.1 with [worth] [corrected by Mill in SC copy]

371.38 fame [frame] [corrected by Mill in SC copy]

374.34 openly [clearly] [corrected by Mill in SC copy]

381.12 judgment; [judgment,] [for sense]

388.12 persih [perish]

399.21 flower-pots [flower-plots] [as in Source (without hyphen), corrected by Mill in SC copy]

404.40 charmed [charmèd] [as in Source]

421.2 flourishes [flourishes,] [as in 59, 67, 75, and for sense]

423.7 va riou slyfrom [variously from]

423.24 atmosphere [atmosphere,] [as in 59,67,75, and for sense]

424.7 γνωμαι [γνω̑μαι]

424n.32 Remains [Remains’] [restyled in this ed.]

429.7 well read [well-read] [as thrice elsewhere in paragraph]

435.4 bears [bear] [for sense]

437.11 exemta [exempta] [as in Source]

437.15 vengeanee [vengeance]

441.42 lulled [dulled] [as in Source]

444.5 “Julia [“ ‘Julia] [restyled in this ed.]

448.12 “Ye . . . doubtless,” . . . “of [“ ‘Ye . . . doubtless,’ . . . ‘of] [restyled in this ed.]

448.38 Corah [Korah] [as in Source and Bible]

449.3 Ishmaelite.” [Ishmaelite.’ ”] [restyled in this ed.]

449.10 “Roman,” . . . “I [“ ‘Roman,’ . . . ‘I] [restyled in this ed.]

449.28 loss.” [loss.’ ”] [restyled in this ed.]

451.36 “As . . . tent” . . . “the [“ ‘As . . . tent’ . . . ‘the] [restyled in this ed.]

452.3 “that [‘that]

452.12 tent.’ ” [tent.’]

453.40 thou [‘thou]

454.47 her’s [hers] [correct in Source]

458.43 robe [robe.]

472.9 [paragraph] Those [[no paragraph] ‘Those] [as in 38, restyled in this ed.]

474n.1-2 [Here . . . unnecessary.] [Mill’s brackets omitted in this ed.]

476n.24 Célébres [Célèbres]

478n.38-9 ‘ideas . . . before,’ ‘that . . . exile,’ [“ideas . . . before,” “that . . . exile,”]

478n.41-3 “He . . . ‘I . . . conscience.’ [“ ‘He . . . “I . . . conscience.” ’]

479n.40 Cardinal” [Cardinal’]

484n.5 “I [“ ‘I]

484n.7 “He [“ ‘He]

484n.35 life! [life)!] [correct in Source]

485n.11 kness [knees]

485n.12 ‘For [“ ‘For]

485n.19 “You [“ ‘You]

485n.20 hermine [her mine]

485n.28 Grandchamp’ (his servant), ‘called [Grandchamp” (his servant), “called] [restyled in this ed.]

485n.31-2 ‘Fly,’ . . . “or . . . lost!” [“ ‘Fly,’ . . . ‘or . . . lost!’ ”]

485n.43 “It [“ ‘It]

486n.5 “The [“ ‘The]

486.2 Militaire [Militaires] [as in 38 and on title page of Source]

487.29 Militaire [Militaires] [as in 38 and on title page of Source]

491.15 fault.’ [fault.] [as in 38]

491.19 seated. [seated,”] [as in 38, restyled in this ed.]

495.27 expected, [expected] [as in 38]

501.3 austère [austère,] [as in Source, 38]

520.21 onward [outward]

527n.6 fed [feud] [as in Source; corrected by Mill in SC copy]

530.17 Semponius [Sempronius] [as in Source]

530.38 Semponius [Sempronius] [as in Source]

538.11 “Life,’ [“Life,”]

538.29 mistatements [misstatements]

[107 ]Two other trivial differences are not otherwise noted: “i.e.” to “i.e.” (347.28) and “the ‘general” to “ ‘the general” (488.12).