Books by Sir Leslie Stephen

The Utilitarians, Stephen argues, were social reformers first and philosophers second, if at all. The history of philosophy is not an isolated domain governed by the unfolding of a timeless inner logic; rather it is an integral part of the history of humanity. "The English Utilitarians of whom I am about to give some account were a group of men who for three generations had a conspicuous influence upon English thought and political action. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were successively their leaders; and I shall speak of each in turn." Sir Leslie Stephen was the first serious critic of the novel, and he was also editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography from its beginning in 1882 until 1891. In 1859 he was ordained a minister. As a tutor at Cambridge his philosophical readings led him to skepticism, and later he relinquished his holy orders. He wrote several essays defending his agnostic position. Throughout his life Stephen was a prominent athlete and mountaineer. Virginia Woolf was the younger of his two daughters by his second wife. His first wife was Harriet Marian Thackeray, daughter of the novelist. This is volume three of a three volume set.

The Utilitarians, Stephen argues, were social reformers first and philosophers second, if at all. The history of philosophy is not an isolated domain governed by the unfolding of a timeless inner logic; rather it is an integral part of the history of humanity. "The English Utilitarians of whom I am about to give some account were a group of men who for three generations had a conspicuous influence upon English thought and political action. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were successively their leaders; and I shall speak of each in turn." Sir Leslie Stephen was the first serious critic of the novel, and he was also editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography from its beginning in 1882 until 1891. In 1859 he was ordained a minister. As a tutor at Cambridge his philosophical readings led him to skepticism, and later he relinquished his holy orders. He wrote several essays defending his agnostic position. Throughout his life Stephen was a prominent athlete and mountaineer. Virginia Woolf was the younger of his two daughters by his second wife. His first wife was Harriet Marian Thackeray, daughter of the novelist. This is volume two of a three volume set.

The Utilitarians, Stephen argues, were social reformers first and philosophers second, if at all. The history of philosophy is not an isolated domain governed by the unfolding of a timeless inner logic; rather it is an integral part of the history of humanity. "The English Utilitarians of whom I am about to give some account were a group of men who for three generations had a conspicuous influence upon English thought and political action. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were successively their leaders; and I shall speak of each in turn." Sir Leslie Stephen was the first serious critic of the novel, and he was also editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography from its beginning in 1882 until 1891. In 1859 he was ordained a minister. As a tutor at Cambridge his philosophical readings led him to skepticism, and later he relinquished his holy orders. He wrote several essays defending his agnostic position. Throughout his life Stephen was a prominent athlete and mountaineer. Virginia Woolf was the younger of his two daughters by his second wife. His first wife was Harriet Marian Thackeray, daughter of the novelist. This is volume one of a three volume set.

Essays on the Alps, the delights of the Alpine rambling, and a young man's expeditions - the piece on Switzerland in winter is perhaps his finest. This is considered to be one of the landmark books of mountaineering literature, and ranks among the best in climbing literature. The book describes 16 of the author's climbs and rambles in the Alps, including chapters on "The Schreckhorn," "The Jungfrau-Joch," and "The Alps In Winter" - a classic of mountain climbing that influenced generations of climbers.Sir Leslie Stephen is one of the most famous personalities in mountaineering, one of the most respected mountaineers and men of letters Britain has produced. His first ascent was in 1857 (Col du Géant). He was president of the Alpine Club from 1865 to 1868, and editor of the Alpine Journal.

The author's only purely philosophical work - an examination of the possibility that the morality of an individual was the result of the demands of the survival of a social being and not, as widely held at the time the outcome of rational calculation or an inexplicable intuition. The agnostic, he held, must place morality on a scientific basis, and this means that there must be nothing in his ethics that is outside the competence of scientific enquiry. Brought up on John Stuart Mill and profoundly influenced by Darwin, Stephen attempted to cut through what he impatiently dismissed as academic debates about morality by showing that moral beliefs were the result neither of excessively rational utilitarian calculation nor of mysterious intuition but of the demands of the social organism in its struggle for survival. Leslie Stephen was the first serious critic of the novel, and he was also editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography from its beginning in 1882 until 1891. In 1859 he was ordained a minister. As a tutor at Cambridge his philosophical readings led him to skepticism, and later he relinquished his holy orders. He wrote several essays defending his agnostic position. Throughout his life Stephen was a prominent athlete and mountaineer. Virginia Woolf was the younger of his two daughters by his second wife. His first wife was Harriet Marian Thackeray, daughter of the novelist.