4 John Stuart Mill first editions are documented on this shelf, from Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy (1848) to The Subjection of Women (1869) across 4 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that John Stuart Mill title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
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- Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy — 1848 · John W. ParkerFirst edition, London: John W. Parker, 1848, issued in two octavo volumes collating xvi,593pp and xv,549pp, bound in the publisher's original green cloth with printed paper spine labels. This is the first appearance of Mill's major economic treatise, published five years after his System of Logic (1843). Both volumes close with a handful of leaves of publisher's advertisements, and a second, revised edition….
- On Liberty — 1859 · John W. Parker and SonFirst edition, London: John W. Parker and Son, 1859, collating [5], 6-207, [1], [4]pp, 8vo, including four pages of smaller-format publisher's advertisements tipped in at the end. Bound in the publisher's original purple cloth with blind-stamped borders, spine lettered in gilt, and red-brown endpapers. Every copy of this printing carries, on the leaf following the title page, Mill's dedication to his late wife,….
- Utilitarianism — 1863 · Parker, Son, and BournFirst book-form edition, London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, 1863, collating 95pp plus 4pp of publisher's advertisements, bound in the publisher's original plum cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, and measuring about 22 cm. The text had first appeared as three unsigned articles in Fraser's Magazine in 1861 before Mill lightly revised and collected it for this first separate book publication. A genuine first…. The Fraser's Magazine serialization of 1861 precedes the first book-form edition of 1863; bibliographers and collectors nonetheless treat the 1863 Parker, Son, and Bourn volume as the first edition in book form. Mill's second edition of 1864 was issued not by Parker, Son, and Bourn but by Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, with the text lightly corrected; the publisher's imprint on the title page is the clearest way to distinguish an 1863 first edition from the 1864 second edition.
- The Subjection of Women — 1869 · Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, LondonFirst edition, first printing: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869, octavo. Issued in publisher's original ochre/light-orange cloth, stamped in blind on the boards with the spine lettered in gilt; edges uncut. There is no printed edition statement and no number line — the 1869 Longmans title-page imprint is itself the point, and copies are identified by imprint plus the original cloth. Later Longmans…. CENSUS CORRECTED. The London 1869 Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer edition is the true first. The census claim that the same-year American printing is D. Appleton, New York, is wrong: the first American edition is J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1869 (174 pp., with 6 pp. of advertisements at the end), issued in green pebbled cloth with gilt-lettered spine. D. Appleton & Company did publish a New York…. No book-club issue is documented for an 1869 title. The trap here is the later Longmans 'People's Edition' and the 1878 reissue, both of which reprint from the same setting and are frequently offered as firsts on the strength of the Longmans imprint alone — check for the 1869 date on the title page. Modern reprints (Routledge, Oxford World's Classics, Dover) are plainly marked.
More Nonfiction & Memoir shelves: Jon Krakauer, Jonathan Swift, Joseph J. Ellis, Karl Marx, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Lewis Thomas.
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