ABSTRACT
It is an interesting circumstance that, although he died more than seventy-five years ago, there has been no full-length biography of John Stuart Mill until just recently. Until then the leading works were still the Autobiography, published by Helen Taylor immediately after his death in 1873, and Alexander Bain's John Stuart Mill: a Criticism, which was published in 1882: the Life of John Stuart Mill by W. L. Courtney, published in 1888 in the 'Great Writers Series', is largely based on these and, although not negligible, is of very minor importance. Then, in 1951, Professor Friedrich Hayek produced his important study of the relations between Mill and Harriet Taylor, which was based directly on this material, at the same time marshalling in a masterly manner the relevant information which had accumulated incidentally in other biographical literature.
