Gordon’s criticisms of war, empire, and political corruption in Cato’s Letters (1720-23) are quite well known. Less well known are the very similar and much more extensive criticisms which he included as prefaces to his translations of the Roman historians Tacitus and Sallust which he wrote subsequently (1728 and 1744 respectively). This edition of his “Discourses” republishes them together for the first time. They are also available in HTML format here.

The Introductions to the Robson Edition of the Collected Works of J.S. Mill (1963-1991) (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013).

The Best of the OLL No. 51: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “On Liberty” (1810-22) (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013).

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. This collection of Shelley’s writings contains his “Declaration of Rights” (1812), numerous poems on the topics of liberty and oppression, and extracts from some of his dramas which were written between 1810 (when he was 18) and his death in 1822 just before he turned 30.

The Best of the OLL No. 50: Condorcet and Olympe de Gouges, “The Rights of Women” (1790-91) (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013).

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list with links to HTML versions of the texts is available here. Some liberals were disappointed when the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen came into effect in August 1789 because it neglected to mention women. The abolitionist and feminist Olympe de Gouges attempted to rectify this with her own “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen” in 1791. We include with this Condorcet’s essay published the previous year “On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship”.

The Best of the OLL No. 49: “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” (1789) (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013).

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list with links to HTML versions of the texts is available here. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen came into effect in August 1789 and summed up the ideas of the liberal constitutional phase of the French Revolution. It was influenced by General Lafayette who had been influenced in turn by the American Declaration of Independence and the creation of various state constitutions. This extract contains the French Declaration in French and English, along with a comparison of it and several American state constitutions of the period.

The Best of the OLL No. 48: J.S. Mill, “Utilitarianism” (1863) (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013).

The Best of the OLL No. 21: Jeremy Bentham, “The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number” (1830) (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013).