[JAMES, WILLIAM]. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature - Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902.
FIRST BRITISH EDITION, FIRST PRINTING; cloth-bound, hardcover, octavo (22.5 x 15 x 4.5 cm), pp. xii, 534, [32] publisher's catalogue. English text. Bound in publisher's original cloth, paper title-label to spine, t.e.g., black endpapers, printed footnotes, rear index in double columns. Condition: GOOD to VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure with the joints and hinges intact. Slight bumping to spine ends. Covers slightly faded. Interior largely very well-preserved, with some browning to endpapers and a contemporary gift inscription. Lacking dust jacket. Scarce.
Notes: Rare first British edition, first printing (preceding the first American printing). No "First Edition June 1902" on verso of title page, misspelled "Nietsche" on page 38, and 32 pages of ads at the rear. This work is the culmination of James' interest in abnormal psychology. These lectures initiated the psychological analysis of religion, and would go on to become his most popular publication. James made a point to examine individual experiences of religious people, rather than the general creeds and theologies of various religions when studying this topic. According to James, religion was generally a feeling that the world around us, the one observable to our senses, is related to one that is not observable by our senses. This unobservable phenomenon is what saves and regenerates the physical world around us, according to his theory. The first British edition and true first of the work.
