Mill in Czech
MILL, John Stuart; Hugo KOSTERKA and Václav PETRŽELKA, translators.
O Svobodě. Přeložili H. Kosterka a V. Petrželka … Prague, Czech student magazine press, 1891.
16mo, pp. 182, [2]; some very light foxing, else a very good copy in contemporary quarter cloth and marbled boards, green and white patterned endpapers; ownership inscription in red pencil to title-page.
First edition in Czech of On Liberty (1859), very rare, translated by the prominent translator and publisher Hugo Kosterka (1867–1956), editor and co-founder of the Moderní revue, and Václav Petrželka (1869–1927).
While Mill’s economics did not exert great influence in Eastern Europe, a young progressive Czech readership chafing under Austro-Hungarian control was receptive to his arguments on freedom of thought and expression. Mill’s On Liberty and On the Subjection of Women were favourites of Tomáš Masaryk, who was emerging as a political figure in the 1890s and would later become the first Prime Minister of the newly independent Czechoslovakia.
Not in Library Hub or OCLC.