3 Review(s)

The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill is a work about collaboration: Harriet's life with members of her family, friends, and lover; Harriet's joint work with John Stuart Mill; and the author's interaction with the reader. The Prelude explores the concept of biography using Salman Rushdie's analogy of history as a process of chutnification. The historical "facts," like a pickler's raw vegetables are sensitively selected and combined with spices which aim to alter the flavour in "degree but not in kind." JoEllen Jacobs gives Harriet's life "shape and form-that is to say, meaning" in a way that will "possess the authentic taste of truth." The first chapter recognises the reader's contribution to the reading of any text. The material for the first thirty years of Harriet's life is presented as a first person diary. The text is firmly based on the letters and historical context of HTM's life, but the style invites the intimacy of reading someone's journal. The second chapter continues the chronological account of HTM's life until her death in 1858.In an interlude between the first and second chapter, Jacobs pauses to explore Harriet's life with John Stuart Mill during the twenty years she lived apart from her first husband while travelling and spending much of her time with John. The relationship they developed included some switching of gender roles, passion, anger and a sharing of dreams, laughter, and family. In the final chapter, Jacobs argues persuasively that Harriet and John collaborated extensively on many works, including On Liberty.