John Stuart Mill described Bentham and Coleridge as 'the two great seminal minds' of early nineteenth-century England. Coleridge, who asserted the primacy of the transcendent imagination, was in a obvious sense the direct opposite of Bentham, the resolute proponent of Utilitarianism but Mill, while recognizing the separateness of their creeds, appreciated both and saw both as necessary to the intellectual vigour of the nation. Mill's major essays on Bentham and Coleridge were first published in The Westminster Review, in 1838 and 1840 respectively. In this substantial introduction to them here F.R. Leavis argues that they are essential documents for an understanding of Victorian culture he traces their influence on the thinking of Dickens, George Eliot and Matthew Arnold, and examines their significance for contemporary principles of liberal education.

Mill on Bentham and Coleridge

Literature & Fiction

Leavis

History & Criticism

Cambridge University Press

<p>Fiction and the Reading Public provoked fierce controvers when first published in 1932, and it has since come to be recognised as a classic in its field. In her fascinating study, Q D Leavis investigates what has happened to the public taste in the last three centuries and what effect this has had on both the life of the nation and the equality of living for the individual. A brilliant piece of literary exegesis and an illuminating anthropological commentary - DAILY MAIL An illuminating study. . . it offers a rich store of interest, not only in its vigorous scrutiny of the novel and the influences which have shaped it, but also in its study of changing attitudes and tempos of life amont the general public who read novels. . . An achievement of distinguished quality and high value. New Republic. She has performed a noble office by inquiring into the case of the bestseller. The result is no less entertaining than instructive -SATURDAY REVIEW.</p>

Fiction And The Reading Public

Contemporary

RANDOM HOUSE UK

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Books by Leavis