Selected Writings of James Fitzjames Stephen: On the Novel and Journalism

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This is the first critical edition of James Fitzjames Stephen's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, a systematic attack on J. S. Mill's later social and political thought. It raises significant questions concerning the limits of tolerance, the relationship between liberty and individuality, and between temporal and spiritual power in modern society. James Fitzjames Stephen was a distinguished jurist, a codifier of the law in England and India, and the judge in the ill-fated Maybrick case; a serious and prolific journalist, a pillar of the Saturday Review and the Pall Mall Gazette. This is the first critical edition of his major work Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, a systematic attack on J. S. Mill's later social and political philosophy. The text originated in a series of twenty letters to the Pall Mall Gazette following Stephen's return from India as the Legal Member of the Viceroy's council in 1872. It was published as a book in 1873 and revised the following year in response to its critics, particularly Frederic Harrison and John Morley. It is the second edition of 1874 that forms the basis of this new edition. Stephen's abrasive style matched his disdain for what he regarded as Mill's enthusiasm for 'abstract' ideals such as liberty and equality--particularly sexual equality. Against Mill's emphasis on freedom of discussion as the most effective means of addressing differences of thought and belief, Stephen argued that conflict could only be resolved by the exercise of force--physical and legal. Rejecting Mill's faith in human improvement through the exercise of reason, he emphasised the importance of revealed religion to morality and to the maintenance of political order. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity raises significant questions concerning the limits of tolerance, the relationship between liberty to individuality and between temporal and spiritual power in modern society. It was memorably described by Sir Ernest Barker as 'the finest flowering of conservative thought in the latter half of the nineteenth century'. However, the book sought not so much to abandon liberalism as to situate it firmly within the realm of 'experience'.

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The latest volume to be published in Oxford's new edition of the Selected Writings of James Fitzjames Stephen, this volume contains A General View of the Criminal Law. Published in the summer of 1863, A General View of the Criminal Law is a highly original account of the fundamental nature, substance and functioning of the criminal law in mid-Victorian England. Written with the assurance and facility of one whose active interests extended well beyond the law into politics, literature, philosophy, and religion, Fitzjames Stephen's General View has three broad objectives: to expose the workings of the institution of criminal law to the scrutiny of both lawyers and non-lawyers; to locate the criminal law in its appropriate political and social context; and to elevate the study of criminal law to a level which would qualify it to be 'an interesting part of a liberal education' - in effect, for it to be recognised as one of the emerging social sciences. While in general holding to the book's expressed aims and seeking to offer a balanced analysis, in the many contentious areas of the criminal law examined there is rarely much doubt about Stephen's own position. Characteristically, as in his earlier and later works, in the General View analytical acuity operates in combination with an emphatic - frequently no holds barred - polemical style of argument. Although often fiercely critical of certain procedural and substantive elements of England's criminal law, ultimately Stephen viewed its core features as a worthy source of national pride.