ABSTRACT
At least the greater part of Mill’s books and papers appear at the time of his death to have been at his cottage at Avignon which passed into the possession of his step-daughter Helen Taylor who later made it her permanent residence till 1904. In March of that year her niece Mary Taylor (daughter of Algernon T.), who, together with a friend (‘Molly’ or ‘Marian’), had a year or two earlier come to live with her as a companion, succeeded in rescuing the old and apparently somewhat senile lady from the clutches of designing French servants and to take her to England. In February 1905 ‘Molly’ together with friends (a Mr. and Mrs. Joll) went to Avignon to liquidate the household. They did there ‘the work of three months in three weeks. Half a ton of letters to be sorted, all manner of rubbish to be separated from useful things, books to be dusted and selected from, arrangements to be made for sale, and 18 boxes to be packed’ (Mary Taylor’s diary in L.S.E. collection).
