TAYLOR, Helen.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph letter signed, regarding a conference of the Moral Reform Union. The social reformer writes to one "Madam" with "regret" that she will not be able to attend the Moral Reform Union's conference on 18 March, held at the home of Maria Henrietta Müller, likely the letter's intended recipient. Taylor served as the Union's honorary secretary from 1890 to 1895 and here sends her "earnest wishes for [the conference's] success".The Moral Reform Union was the successor to the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act, after the eponymous Act was repealed in 1886. Taylor (1831-1907), along with her stepfather, John Stuart Mill, was a vehement opponent of the Act, and here sends "a subscription which I have increased for this year as there seems need for a revival of energy in the great work of opposition to the State regulation of vice". "£5.00" is written in contrasting ink on the first page.Taylor's inability to travel to England was caused by "the effects of a carriage accident"; she writes that "having left my room for the first time since the accident yesterday, I am sorry to find that I have counted too much upon my strength". Taylor spent much of her time in Avignon, living at a property that Mill purchased to be near the grave of the philosopher Harriet Taylor Mill, his wife and Taylor's mother, who died nearby in 1858. After Harriet's death, Helen served as Mill's amanuensis, and "in his letters Mill is candid about those issues on whic

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