Lives of Victorian Political Figures, Part IV:

John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, William Morris and Thomas Hill Green by their Contemporaries

In Part IV of the series, attention moves to Victorian political philosophers. Best known for his seminal work On Liberty (1859) John Stuart Mill was an influential liberal thinker. An exponent of utilitarianism, he advocated moral and economic freedom of individuals from the state. Walter Bagehot became editor-in-chief of The Economist in 1860. Under his tenure, the periodical increased its influence with politicians and policy-makers. William Morris was an artist, writer and socialist associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. He advocated a form of socialism based on medieval guild structures, which he thought would give craftsmen dignity in a mechanised age. Deeply influenced by Kant and Hegel, Thomas Hill Green was a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy (Oxford). He was a political radical and a temperance reformer.

Carefully selected extracts from biographies, memoirs, diaries, private letters and other ephemera reveal how these key nineteenth-century figures were viewed by their contemporaries. The edition benefits from a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes, endnotes and a consolidated index. It will be vital to those studying Nineteenth-Century Studies, Political History and Philosophy.

• The first collection of contemporary political commentary on these figures as distinct from their other activities
• Fills a major gap in British Idealism scholarship
• Some texts are here printed for the first time, with many more coming from obscure and hard-to-trace sources

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