The Subjection of Women.

MILL, John Stuart.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 144100

London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869.

First edition of Mill’s classic work defending the rights of women, publisher’s presentation copy, with a blind stamp to title, “Presented by the Publishers.” Octavo, original cloth. In very good condition, names to the half-title page. Rare and desirable.

“Many of Mill’s ideas are now the commonplaces of democracy. His arguments for freedom of every kind of thought or speech have never been improved on” (PMM 345). Mill’s wife, Harriet Taylor, proved especially influential in developing this work; her 1851 essay on the enfranchisement of women directly inspired it. “During the seven years of his married life Mill published less than in any other period of his career, but four of his most closely reasoned and characteristic works, Liberty, the Utilitarianism, the Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform and the Subjection of Women… were thought out and partly written in collaboration with his wife” (Britannica). “No one had a more rooted hatred for all oppression [illustrated by] his advocacy of the equality of the sexes” (DNB).