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One of the most versatile British thinkers of the nineteenth century, Mill
was an incisive critic of liberalism as well as its greatest exponent. His
Autobiography, published the year of his death, has eclipsed his
political and economic studies, such as the Essay on Liberty and
Utilitarianism. According to a note written by Mill's step-daughter Helen
Taylor on this manuscript, the work was "to be published without alterations or
omissions, within one year of my death." In fact, it was published from a
hastily made copy, and it was not until 1924 that an edition, based on this
manuscript, considered more reliable since it is in Mill's own hand, was first
published by the Columbia University Press. The 1861 portion of the manuscript
represents a heavily revised version of an early draft done in 1851; the last
forty-eight leaves are the only draft of all but one small portion of the rest
of the Autobiography.
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