The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

By: John Stuart Mill

Narrated by: Noah Waterman

Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Mill's autobiography deals primarily with the life of the mind - but it is a mind which ranks as one of the most remarkable and significant of the nineteenth century. The book memorably depicts the emergence of a brilliant child prodigy, the product of an extraordinary education which both hastened his development and brought him to the brink of suicide by the age of 21. Illumined with equal clarity is the story of John Stuart Mill's renewed commitment to life, and of the further conflicts which marked his long evolution toward maturity as a major philosopher and social thinker.

Superb in its dispassionate objectivity, the Autobiography stands as a work of enduring relevance and a final testament to a rare and luminous intelligence.

Public Domain (P)1996 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Argh! Missing a fragment at the climax!

I have been listening to this autobiography with intense pleasure. (Let it be said that I am a huge admirer of John Stuart Mill and unusually historically knowledgeable, and so likely to be more inclined toward the book than most.) Like all of his mature work, this book is, without being in the least pretentious or vain, a virtuoso exhibition of intelligence and sympathy of the highest degree.

Here's the kicker, though. Right at the climax of the autobiography, where Mill is in a suicidal depression, and a chance encounter with a particular book breaks through his despair, the recording skips a chunk of text, and we hear nothing about the actual turnaround! WTAF!! I resorted to the free text at the wonderful (though, to me, ideologically quite uncongenial) online Library of Liberty to figure out what had happened. (It was worth it, because the accounts of this episode I had encountered elsewhere turn out to be wrong in their detail!) Anyway, I hope this inexcusable lacuna in the recording is amended in a revised edition published as soon as possible.

Vaguely interesting

... incredibly dry at points purely due to the preponderance of utterly dull minutiae about matters I find it impossible to care about. It is little wonder Stuart entered into a severe state of despondency for a time. Were it not for the details of this rather interesting mental breakdown I would have rated this clumsy attempt to share a life a single star.

Fascinating childhood education

I found the audiobook very interesting, but I was already a fan of John Stuart Mill. Anyone who is curious about the intellectual aspects of John Stuart Mill's life will find this book very satisfying. I found it particularly fascinating to hear about his extraordinary unorthodox home education, as well as his views on education overall. Since John Stuart Mill would have had a British accent, I would have preferred a British narrator. Nevertheless, the American narrator did a great job speaking so quickly as to keep the pace at a rate which made listening very easy. JSM did not have a dramatic, adventurous, swashbuckling life, but that is part of his charm; he was a fantastic thinker, a brilliant mind. I loved the book. I gained valuable insights into the man.

Dry with spotty audio

A dry recounting of events. Audio skipped ahead at several points, causing sections to be missed. The narrator did an excellent job of making long convoluted sentences easy to follow.

Couldn’t get past the first two hours

Unlistenable. So so boring. the whole first couple hours are just endless lists of books he’s read.