The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill

For the past 170 years, historians have presented Harriet Taylor Mill as a footnote in John Stuart Mill's life. Most of her words have never been transcribed from the manuscripts held at the London School of Economics. Those letters and few essays that have appeared have often been taken out of cont [...]
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For the past 170 years, historians have presented Harriet Taylor Mill as a footnote in John Stuart Mill's life. Most of her words have never been transcribed from the manuscripts held at the London School of Economics. Those letters and few essays that have appeared have often been taken out of context for use in a vitriolic attack on her personality and intellect. This volume gives Harriet Taylor Mill her own voice. Readers can each assess for themselves the importance and influence of her ideas on women's issues such as marriage and divorce, education, domestic violence, and suffrage.Those reading her ideas on ethics, religion, arts, historical figures, and socialism will be able to note the overlap between her ideas (many written in the 1830s) with On Liberty and Utilitarianism which were published twenty-five years or more later. The pages are filled with Harriet Taylor Mill's passionate and practical understanding of the world. She attacks organized religion for its irrelevance in most people's spiritual lives and praises the co-operative unions producing goods in France.Readers will learn about Victorian cures for their ailments from tuberculosis to stomach derangement, and the intricacies of travel in Europe during this period.Mill's letters to her daughter disclose the classic difficulties of a young adult's first departure from home, while her letters to her sons reveal an affectionate but more distant relationship. Her correspondence with John Stuart Mill demonstrates her willingness to open her heart to him, including her lust, her anger, and her curiosity.