Autobiography by John Stuart Mill (Riverside Editions Edited by Jack Stillinger)

One of the greatest prodigies of his era, John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was studying arithmetic and Greek by the age of three, as part of an astonishingly intense education at his father's hand. Intellectually brilliant, fearless and profound, he became a leading Victorian liberal thinker, whose works - including "On Liberty", "Utilitarianism", "The Subjection of Women" and this "Autobiography" - are among the crowning achievements of the age. Here he describes the pressures placed on him by his childhood, the mental breakdown he suffered as a young man, his struggle to understand a world of feelings and emotions far removed from his father's strict didacticism, and the later development of his own radical beliefs. A moving account of an extraordinary life, this great autobiography reveals a man of deep integrity, constantly searching for truth.

Through Mill's autobiography, the social and political climate of nineteenth century England comes alive. The reader is given new insights into the events of an age: the reform movements, the English-Irish question, the development of democratic principles. With candor and perception, Mill discusses these issues and explains how they influenced his writing and thinking.