This volume charts James's emergence into professional and personal maturity while chronicling the decisive steps he took toward resolving his notoriously protracted and difficult search for a profession. He published his first substantial signed articles and also undertook some shrewd academic maneuvering that would secure him a chair in philosophy despite his lack of formal training.

After years of procrastination and false starts, James finally completed most of the work during this peroid on a book destined to become a classic in its field: The Principles of Psychology. He continues his dialogue with established correspondents onf the psychological and philosophical issues of the day and displays a blossoming interest psychical research, much of it centered on Leonora Piper, the American trance medium. James's interest in his graduate students reveals itself in his correspondence with (among others) George Santayana and Charles Augustus Strong, both of whom sought...

The chief event of the period is the publication of the long-awaited Principles of Psychology, which produced congratulatory and critical letters from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Christine Ladd Franklin, Shadworth Hollway Santayana, James Mark Baldwin, and others. James also devoted much effort to ensuring that Harvard did not fall behind its many emerging rivals in psychology, showed strains and a developing sense of rivalry with Granville Stanley Hall, a former student now established as president of nearby Clark University, and furthering Mary Whiton Calkins' efforts to become a graduate...

This eighth volume of a projected twelve continues the series of William James's correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues, which was begun in volume 4 of the Correspondence. The eight volume contains some 530 letters, with an additional 620 letters calendared, thus giving a complete accounting of James's known correspondence from 1895 to June 1899 inclusive.

During this period, James struggles against various temptations, never completely successfully, to devote all of his attention to philosophy, the first and great love of his life. To this end, he published The Will to...

This ninth volume of a projected twelve continues the series of William James's correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues that was begun in Volume 4. Consisting of some 470 letters, with as many more calendared, it offers a complete accounting of James's known correspondence from July 1899 through 1901.

Volume 9 covers the period of James's great collapse, of his years of exile in Europe in search of health, and of the beginning of his withdrawal from full-time teaching at Harvard. In spite of his heart troubles, nervous prostration, and often-proclaimed inability to work,...

This eleventh volume of a projected twelve continues the series of William James's correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues that began with volume 4. Consisting of some 500 letters, with an additional 650 letters calendared, volume 11 gives a complete accounting of James's known correspondence from April 1905 through March 1908.

Several major professional events in James's career occur during this period, including his California adventure--a semester of teaching at Stanford University in the spring of 1906 that is interrupted by the San Francisco earthquake on April 18....

This twelfth and final volume of The Correspondence of William James concludes the series of William James's correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues that began with volume 4. The first three volumes were devoted to the letters exchanged between the brothers William and Henry James. Consisting of some 600 letters, with an additional 650 letters calendared, this final volume gives a complete accounting of James's known correspondence from April of 1908 to 21 August 1910, inclusive, the last letter having been written five days before James's death on 26 August 1910. The volume...