On Liberty
Mill argues that the only justified reason for interfering with a person's freedom is to prevent harm to others, and then works out what that principle implies for opinion, speech and individual conduct. The essay is short and its argument is unusually clear.
It is also a product of its moment: Mill is worried about the tyranny of the majority and about the deadening effect of public opinion. Some of his examples are dated, and the central principle is harder to apply than it looks. Read it as an argument rather than a doctrine, and notice where he qualifies his own rule.
Public-domain status
First published in 1859. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; John Stuart Mill died in 1873, so this work has been free to republish there since 1944.
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