Utilitarian ideas in nineteenth-century America have been given short shrift inmodern historical and philosophical scholarship. Collecting the relevant publishedwork together in one place is an essential starting point for any serious investigation of American utilitarians andtheir critics. James Crimmins and Mark Spencer have made an expert selection from scattered sources of around 60 important articles andessays. These include treatments of Bentham by his friend John Neal, editor of The Yankee, and commentaries on John Stuart Mill gatheredfrom rare American journals. There are also discussions of utilitarian jurisprudence by the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, andpieces by many other writers. This collection, with its substantial editorial introduction, will be vital reading for historians of ideas,scholars of philosophy and political thought, and any one else interested in the fate of utilitarianism in America.