The Subjection of Women.

first edition

The first edition of this pioneering essay in defence of women's rights by the great liberal philosopher J.S. Mill (1806-1873).

The work was chiefly inspired by his short but happy marriage to the women's rights activist Harriet Taylor Mill (1807-1858). She had been an equal contributor to Mill's great essay On liberty, and her death in 1858 was in Mill's own words, an 'irreparable loss'.

To the present essay, Mill acknowledged that 'all that is most striking and profound belongs to my wife; coming from the fund of thought which had been made common to us both, by our innumerable conversations and discussions on a topic which filled so large a place in our minds' (Autobiography, p.266).

Mill put his philosophy into action. As MP for Westminster he became one of the strongest voices in Parliament calling for women to be given the right to vote, and on his death left a legacy of £6000, nearly half of his estate, to the furtherance of women's education.

First edition, first printing; 8vo (20 x 13 cm); ownership inscription in pen to front free endpaper verso, old bookbinder's ticket to rear pastedown, a little toned; publisher's blind-panelled tan cloth, spine lettered in gilt, headcap chipped with slight loss, spine darkened, fore-edge with old worm holes, overall very good; [4], 188pp.