According to Mill’s Autobiography, the book was first intended to be a short essay, but as the ideas developed, it was expanded, rewritten and sedulously corrected by Mill and his wife, Harriet Taylor. After suffering a mental breakdown, Mill had met fortuitously met Harriet, who changed many of his beliefs on moral life and women’s rights. Mill later stated that On Liberty “was more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name.”
