The Online Library of Liberty

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• Preface
• Introduction
• Abbreviations and Short Titles
• The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1855
• 1849
• 1850
• 1851
• 1852
• 1853
• 1854
• 1855

The Collected Edition of the works of John Stuart Mill has been planned and is being directed by an editorial committee appointed from the Faculty of Arts and Science of the University of Toronto, and from the University of Toronto Press. The primary aim of the edition is to present fully collated texts of those works which exist in a number of versions, both printed and manuscript, and to provide accurate texts of works previously unpublished or which have become relatively inaccessible.

Editorial Committee

j. m. robson,General Editor

v. w. bladen, alexander brady, j. b. conacher, d. p. dryer, s. hollander, clifford leech, r. f. mcrae, f. e. l. priestley, marsh jeanneret, francess halpenny, jean houston

TO FRIEDRICH A. VON HAYEK

Preface

since the publication in 1963 of The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill, 1812-1848, ed. Francis E. Mineka (Vols. XII and XIII of the Collected Works), we have been engaged in the much larger task of collecting and editing the letters of the last twenty-five years of Mill’s life. The earlier volumes contained 537 letters, about half of which had not been previously published; the present volumes contain over 1800, more than half hitherto unpublished. Most of the collecting for the earlier volumes was the work of Professor Friedrich A. von Hayek, begun during World War II; while the present volumes contain many letters also assembled by him, some of which can no longer be found, about half have been located within the past ten years by the senior editor. We have also included in Appendix I over sixty earlier letters which have come to light since 1963.

The rationale and the method of the present volumes are essentially the same as those of the earlier volumes. We have included all the personal letters we have found, but, with one exception (Letter 1292), have excluded letters expressly written for publication, which will appear in a later volume of the Collected Works. We have included, however, private letters printed by their recipients in various papers, usually without Mill’s permission. We have excluded, because of space, letters to Mill, but have indicated their location, and on occasion quoted relevant passages from them in footnotes. A relatively small number of what may seem to some readers inconsequential or insignificant letters are included, in the interest of completeness, and in the belief that details now thought insignificant may, in the light of further research, come into more meaningful focus.

To identify the “best text” of a letter is much easier than to find it. The best text is, of course, the original autograph letter. Next best is a manuscript draft; fortunately for his editors, Mill in later years, conscious that his letters might be of interest to a wider public, preserved drafts, often labelled “For Publication.” For many letters the drafts are the only surviving versions. We have printed these as drafts, without correcting abbreviations, punctuation, or usage, and without adding signatures. In both drafts and autograph letters Mill’s spelling has been retained (e.g. shew for show, stile for style, contemporary for contemporary, recal for recall); his infrequent errors in French have not been corrected; and his punctuation has only rarely been altered, when necessary for clarity of meaning. In a few instances we have had to assemble a letter from portions now located in different places; for example, Letter 653, to W. T. Thornton, exists in three fragments in the libraries of King’s College, Cambridge, the University of Leeds, and the London School of Economics. When both the autograph letter and the draft have been located, we have, of course, based our transcript on the letter, but on the rare occasions when there are significant differences between the two we have indicated those differences in notes. Published versions have been used only when neither letter nor draft has been located. When no published version is indicated, the letter is, to the best of our knowledge, published here for the first time.

The first footnote to each letter provides the following information in this order: the location of manuscripts when known; addresses of correspondents and postmarks when available; and the place of publication of previously published letters.

A special problem arose over the real authorship of certain of the later letters. From 1865 on, the demands of public life greatly increased the amount of Mill’s correspondence, to such an extent that he could not have carried it on without help. That help was provided by his step-daughter, Helen Taylor. A number of the extant drafts are in her hand, written from his dictation; some are in his hand, written from her dictation. Some were composed in whole or part by her and signed by him. Mill, in notes attached to the drafts, often indicated the extent of Helen’s contribution. Since the exact contribution of each to letters in which both had a part cannot be determined, we have adopted the following practice: we have included letters if they were sent in Mill’s name and, even when signed by Helen Taylor, if they are in his handwriting. We have excluded letters that she both wrote and signed. Notations on the manuscript, whether about publication or Helen’s share of a letter, are reproduced in the first footnote.

When excerpts of letters have been earlier published, for which no manuscripts have been located, we have reprinted them as separate letters, in the hope of leaving as few lacunae in Mill’s correspondence as possible, and on the chance that the excerpts may lead to the recovery of the full text. In view of the very widespread dispersal of Mill’s letters, more will undoubtedly come to light. Some that did during the course of printing this edition, too late to include in the regular order, have been placed in Appendix II. Readers who come into possession of additional letters or of information about their location will render valuable service to Mill scholarship if they will inform the Editor of the Collected Works at the University of Toronto Press.

In assembling and editing as large a collection of letters as this, the editors have inevitably been dependent upon the generous assistance of many persons. Our basic indebtedness has, of course, been to Professor F. A. von Hayek, who in the course of his project, undertaken in 1942, to collect and publish the earlier letters of Mill, also made transcripts of many later letters, including about half of those to be found in this edition. The originals of some of these can no longer be located (for example, letters to Thomas Hare, once in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts), and Professor von Hayek’s transcripts have served as the source of our text in such instances. He generously turned over to us all his files relating to Mill’s correspondence. Without his help, the work of collecting would have been greatly increased. We, and all students of Mill, must be sincerely grateful to him.

We are indebted for the grant of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Fulbright research fellowships in 1962-63 to the senior editor which enabled him to do much of the collecting in England. We have owed much over the past ten years to a number of assistants whose employment was made possible by funds from the endowment of the Class of 1916 Professorship at Cornell University held by the senior editor. Mrs. Emily Morrison in the early stages of the editing got the work off to a good start. In London in 1962-63 Mr. Peter M. Jackson contributed greatly in locating out-of-the-way letters and information valuable for the annotation. Mrs. Eleanor Pike in the earlier stages of the work did much of the typing. Two graduate students at Cornell, Mrs. Barbara Hutchison Groninger and Mr. Edwin J. Kenney, contributed a good deal during their summers. Mrs. Nancy C. Martin located at Colindale some published letters, and Miss Gillian Workman an unpublished letter at the Public Records Office. The mainstay of the work since 1963, however, has been Mrs. Celia Sieverts, whose knowledge of European languages, skill and persistence in tracking down often very obscure information, and passion for accuracy have made significant contributions. Without her help, this edition would have suffered greatly.

Many have aided us in the collecting of the widely scattered letters. Dr. James M. Osborn of Yale University has with unfailing generosity made available many letters from his large and ever-growing collection. Mr. Joseph H. Schaffner of New York freely gave access to his private collection. M. Pierre Sadi-Carnot arranged for the photographing of letters in his family papers, as did Mr. W. Rosenberg of the University of Canterbury, N.Z. The late Professor Delio Cantimori of Florence secured photographs for us of letters to Pasquale Villari in the library of the Vatican. Professor Eileen Curran of Colby College, in the course of her research for The Wellesley Index, turned up a good many letters, often in out-of-the-way manuscript files. Dr. William E. S. Thomas of Christ Church, Oxford, located letters to Col. William Napier and long-sought letters to Sir William Molesworth, which Sir John Molesworth-St. Aubyn has given permission to publish. Mr. G. A. Wood of Newcastle, England, sent from his family papers letters to William Wood. Mr. D. Flanagan of the Co-operative Union Ltd., Manchester, was most helpful in permitting access to that organization’s collection of George Jacob Holyoake’s papers. Mr. Dennis O’Brien of Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland, kindly supplied photocopies of letters to Lord Overstone. A number of persons contributed over the years to the search for the copies of Mill’s letters smuggled out of Prague at the time of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Germany: Professor Eugene Rice, now of Columbia University, searched archives in Prague, but it was Dr. Linda L. McAlister, then of Cornell, who provided the clue that led us to Professor Roderick M. Chisholm of Brown University, who was able to supply photographs from the Brentano collection. Professor Jack Stillinger of the University of Illinois, Professor Michael Wolff, then of Indiana University, now of the University of Massachusetts, Professor J. A. La Nauze and Mr. N. B. de Marchi of the Australian National University, Professor F. B. Smith of the University of Melbourne, Mr. Richard Ormond of the National Portrait Gallery in London, Mr. J. H. Prynne of the Library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, all helped us in gaining access to letters in the possession of their respective institutions. Mrs. Evelyn Pugh of George Washington University and Mr. Russell Buchan of Vanderbilt University located for us letters published in American newspapers. Among those who supplied us with letters in their possession were Professor Joseph Hamburger of Yale University, Principal John M. Robson of the University of Toronto, the late Dr. Adelaide Weinberg of London, Professor Edward Alexander of the University of Washington, Professor Ronald H. Coase of the University of Virginia, the late Professor Jacob Viner of Princeton University, Professor Joseph Dorfman of Columbia University, Professor Leslie Marchand of Rutgers University, Professor Edward Shils of the University of Chicago, Mrs. Caroline Hughes D’Agostino and Mrs. George Hughes, Professor Iring Fetscher, Mr. Richard A. Ehrlich, Mr. E. Liggett, Mr. Michael Maurice, and Mr. L. S. Johnson. Professor Cecil Lang of the University of Virginia, Professor Walter E. Houghton of Wellesley College, and Dr. Stephen Frick of Cornell called our attention to letters in various libraries in England. The late Professor Daniel Villey of Paris provided us with information that led to the recovery of a number of letters to Charles Dupont-White. In other searches in Paris we were assisted by Professors Anne Humphreys, John Mineka, and Baxter Hathaway. Professor von Hayek graciously permitted us to reproduce the portrait of Harriet Mill in his possession, as did Dr. Graham Hutton his hitherto unreproduced portrait of Mill.

Others who aided in various ways, particularly in the annotation, included Professors Gordon Kirkwood, Harry Caplan, James Hutton, Douglas Dowd, Robert Kaske, Edward Morris, all of Cornell University; Professor Paul Parker of Hamilton College; Harold E. Dailey of Columbia University; M. J.-P. Mayer, editor of the works of De Tocqueville; Professor Henry W. Spiegel of the Catholic University of America; Professor Edward C. Mack of the City University of New York; Professor Ann Robson of the University of Toronto. Of the many librarians to whose assistance we are indebted we can mention here only Professors Felix Reichmann, the late George H. Healey, and Donald Eddy of the Cornell University Library, Miss Judith A. Schiff of the Yale University Library, and Mr. C. G. Allen of the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics, who have over the years been unfailingly generous. To Muriel Mineka and Janie Lindley we owe our deepest gratitude for assistance in countless ways, but most of all for their sympathetic interest which has sustained us throughout the long task. If we have overlooked some in this long catalogue of our debts, we extend our apologies. We cannot conclude, however, without acknowledging the wise supervision and counsel of the present editor of the Collected Works; from Principal John M. Robson’s comprehensive and detailed knowledge of Mill we have profited at almost every turn.