Abstract

A scholar’s life and thought can probably best be recounted by another scholar. John Clendenning, Professor of English at California State University-Northridge, is precisely the appropriate scholar for the scholar Josiah Royce. As editor of an important collection of Royce’s Letters, Clendenning had already indicated vast knowledge of his subject. Here, however, he shows more: interpretive skill, smoothness of style, a pertinent sense of anecdote, and sensitivity to the interplay between biographical data and ideas. His book displays a further feature which will be perceived by some as a flaw, by others a strength: its perspective is by and large sympathetic.