The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• 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

EDITORS’ NOTE

The latest authoritative text, printed here on recto pages through p. 259 and on both rectos and versos thereafter, is that of the holograph MS in the Columbia University Library, untitled by Mill but containing two identical notes written and signed by his stepdaughter:

The text given on the facing versos is that of the holograph Early Draft MS at the University of Illinois (through p. 246) followed by that of a holograph fragment at Yale headed “Note . . . concerning the participation of my wife in my writings” (pp. 250-8). It should be specially observed, since the co-ordination of early and later versions on facing pages will here and there produce gaps on the page and occasionally even entire pages of blank space that do not exist in the MSS, that both the Early Draft text and the Yale fragment are written continuously from beginning to end, without chapter divisions; in the Columbia MS each chapter begins on a new page, after which the text is written continuously without break to the end of the chapter.

In the accompanying textual apparatus, mainly two kinds of note are used to present a selection of cancellations and other alterations preliminary to the final form of the MS texts. In one of them (e.g., 8^c-c), a bracketed “Earlier version” indicates earlier wording that Mill deleted and replaced by the word or span of words enclosed by the superscript letters in the text. In the other (e.g., 6^b), which depends on a single superscript in the text, a bracketed “Cancelled text” indicates a word or words that Mill deleted, but did not replace, at the point at which the single superscript occurs. Both kinds of note represent simplifications; they overlook false starts and generally do not distinguish between original and intermediate versions preliminary to the final form of text (at 8^c-c Mill first wrote “cannot remember any time . . .” before revising to the wording given in the textual note, and an abandoned intermediate attempt—“have no remembrance of having ever been unable to”—is likewise ignored). They do, however, unless there is explanation to the contrary, give readings that once stood complete in their contexts and that, for the practical purpose of recovering what Mill at one time or another actually wrote, can be substituted or inserted in the text according to the positions designated by the superscripts.

There are also, specifically for the Early Draft, a number of notes explaining the later addition of leaves to the MS, the addition or revision of text “at left” (in the normally blank left-hand half of the MS page), the rearrangement of paragraphs and other sizable portions of text, a selection of pencilled alterations and other markings by Mill’s wife, Harriet Taylor Mill (HTM), and some variant and cancelled readings from the thirty “rejected leaves” retained at the end of the MS (these are designated “R” or “RII” plus folio number in the textual notes, and are described in detail in Appendix G, pp. 608-24 below). The alignment of parallel texts and the length of some notes to the Early Draft have occasionally made it necessary to carry notes over to the facing recto page; to prevent confusion, a rule is used to set them off from the text and notes of the Autobiography.

The Autobiography was published by Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer on 17 October, 1873, five months and ten days after Mill’s death, from a hastily written transcript of the Columbia MS made by Helen Taylor, Mill’s sister Mary Elizabeth Colman, and an unidentified French copyist. Neither the transcript, which is now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, nor the first printed version has independent authority, and their variants are not included in the textual apparatus here.

The work is not mentioned in Mill’s bibliography. For critical comment and more specific details concerning the manuscripts and the composition and transmission of the text from the Early Draft through the first edition, see the Introduction, pp. vii-xxx above.