John Morley (1838-1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. He devoted a considerable amount of time to literature. Morley's position as a leading British writer had early been determined by his monographs on Voltaire (1872), Rousseau (1873), Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (1878), Burke (1879), and Walpole (1889). His contributions to political journalism and to literary, ethical and philosophical criticism were numerous and valuable.