Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"[Thrailkill's] approach to the three siblings under the aspect of play is an inspired one that draws them together like never before.
Philosophical Siblings will surely prompt new approaches to all three Jameses, and will excite cognitivists and theorists of play...Perhaps there is an invitation here for scholars of the aesthetic movement to integrate art for art’s sake with play for play’s sake? If they do, one hopes that they will have—and share—as much fun as Thrailkill." * American Literary History *
"Written with elegance and clarity, using both intellectual history and sophisticated rhetorical analysis, this useful book shows how Alice, William, and Henry James participated in philosophical, scientific, technological, and literary trends of thought in the American (and sometimes British) 19th century. The concept of play that this book explains is not so much a matter of mood but rather a mode of theorizing experience. The book’s account of the relationships among the writings of the siblings compares them fruitfully." * Choice *
"Jane Thrailkill offers a powerfully synthetic new account of the much-studied James family, but she also does much more. Although her account of the Jameses is consummate enough to convince any specialist, her book might fairly be said to take these writers as a jumping-off point for elaborating a dazzling theory of philosophizing as play-and vice versa." * Jennifer Fleissner, Indiana University *
