From Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since 19 August 1998
About this Item
First edition. 8vo, publisher's original brown ribbed cloth with russet endpapers, the boards paneled in blind, the spine panel with two paper labels lettered in manuscript. With the Baronial engraved bookplate of Thomas Ashton of Hyde, British philanthropist, politician, and peer. 207, [1] colophon, 16 ads. pp. A fine and bright copy internally, the text especially fresh, a few pencil notations of interest but easily removed if desired, the boards are only lightly age mellowed and with a bit of mottling, unfaded and with little wear, the spine with loss to the cloth at both tips. FIRST EDITION OF THE GREAT TEXT ON LIBERTY, one of the scarcest Mill first editions and the one which remains his most widely read book. It is also the work Mill himself thought most likely to be of enduring value. ON LIBERTY represents the final stage in the growth of Utilitarian doctrine, and its central point is one which had escaped both Mill's father and Jeremy Bentham: that the 'greatest good' of the community is inseparable from the liberty of the individual. Hitherto, liberty had always been considered relative, in relation to tyranny or oppression; Mill extended tyranny to include a custom-ridden majority, and declared that 'the sole end for which mankind is justified in interfering with liberty of action is self-protection.' 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. He was the first to recognize the tendency of a democratically elected majority to tyrannize over a minority, and his warning against it has a contemporary ring: 'We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and, if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.' (PMM). Seller Inventory # 31607
Bibliographic Details
Title: ON LIBERTY
Publisher: London John W. Parker and Son 1859
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition
Store Description
All books are offered subject to prior sale. All books are returnable within 10 days, we ask that you notify
us via fax, phone or email in advance. Buddenbrooks, Inc. is located at 21 Pleasant Street, On the
Courtyard, in Newburyport, MA 01950 USA. All correspondences should be sent to this address to the
attention of Martin Weinkle or Stephen Pepple.
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