The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons.
• Chapter I.: 1835–1851.
• Chapter II.: 1851–1854.
• Chapter III.: 1854–1859.
• Chapter IV.: 1859.
• Chapter V.: 1859–1859.
• Chapter VI.: 1863–1863.
• Chapter VII.: 1866–1866.
• Chapter VIII.: 1868–1872.
• Chapter IX.: 1872–1874.
• Chapter X.: 1874–1876.
• Chapter XI.: 1876–1880.
• Chapter XII.: 1880–1882.
• Appendix A.
• Letter From H. R. Grenfell, Esq.
• To H. R. Grenfell, Esq.
• Appendix B.: Mr. Jevons' Writings.

PREFACE.

In arranging this selection of my husband's letters, my object has been to give an account of his life in his own words, as much as possible. It is hardly necessary to say that none of the letters were written with a view to publication; but with the exception of omissions, and of occasional obvious errors, occurring through haste in writing, they have been left quite unaltered.

My warmest thanks are due to Mr. James Sime, who has helped me in seeing this volume through the press, as well as in the task of selecting and arranging the letters. So many had been preserved by different members of Mr. Jevons's family that it would have been easy to fill two volumes of this size, and I found it almost impossible to make a selection which would give, to those who knew my husband only by his writings, the best idea of his character as a man in the different relations of life; and after all no one can be more conscious than myself of the incompleteness of the book from this point of view.

I have placed at the end of the volume as complete a list as I could form of my husband's writings, with the exception of reviews of books which he occasionally wrote for Nature and other papers.

I wish to take this opportunity of most sincerely thanking those correspondents of my husband who have entrusted me with his letters, and permitted me to make my own selection for publication.

HARRIET A. JEVONS.

• 2 The Chestnuts, Hampstead.

“For my own part I felt it to be almost presumptuous to pronounce to myself the hopes I held and the schemes I formed. Time alone could reveal whether they were empty or real; only when proved real could they be known to others.”—Journal, 1862, p.13.