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 also accounts for undated letters, as well as letters
located too late to be included in their proper chronological place
in the preceding volumes.
The correspondence takes place against a background of aging and
illness. First came Henry's collapse in the spring of 1910, which
led William and Alice to undertake their last voyage to Europe.
Leaving wife and brother in England, William journeyed to Paris in
hopes that a doctor there could ease the pain in his chest, and
then to Bad-Nauheim. There, although the results from X rays and
measurements of his blood gave him hope, his condition did not
improve. William wandered around Europe, joined by his wife and
brother, before boarding a steamer for Montreal. By then an
invalid, unable on most days to make even simple entries in his
diary, he traveled from Quebec to Chocorua, where he died in the
arms of his wife.
Professionally there are three major events during this period
in James's life. First was the delivery at Manchester College,
Oxford, of the Hibbert Lectures on the present condition of
philosophy, published in 1908 as A Pluralistic Universe. As was his
habit, James sent numerous complimentary copies of his book and
received many thoughtful responses, which provide a rare
opportunity to see how differently diverse readers interpret the
same book. Next came publication of The Meaning of Truth, which
forced James to return to the defense of the pragmatic conception
of truth. The third was his work on a textbook in metaphysics that
was to become the posthumously published Some Problems of
Philosophy.
Most of James's philosophical correspondents remain the same as
in the previous volume: John Dewey, Henri Bergson, Francis Herbert
Bradley, Ferdinand Canning Schiller, Charles Sanders Peirce, Ralph
Barton Perry, William Pepperell Montague, Horace Meyer Kallen,
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, Charles Augustus Strong, and Dickinson
Sergeant Miller. With the French philosopher Emile Boutroux and the
German pragmatist Julius Goldstein there is more extensive
correspondence in this volume than in the previous one. Sigmund
Freud, while not a correspondent, makes a cameo appearance when he
and James meet in the fall of 1909 at Clark University.
General
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