Autobiography

by John Stuart Mill

Autobiography is John Stuart Mill's account of his own mind, written in the 1850s and 1860s and published in 1873, the year of his death. He describes the extraordinary education imposed by his father James Mill, who had him reading Greek at three and political economy at thirteen, his early work for the Benthamite cause, the mental crisis of his twenties when he found that the achievement of all his aims would bring him no joy, and his recovery through poetry and a wider view of human nature. He gives a long tribute to Harriet Taylor, whom he married after many years of friendship, and ends with his writing on logic, liberty and representative government and his years in Parliament. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.