In 1856, when William James, 19th-century philosopher and psychologist, was 14 years old, he and his brother Henry were living in Paris with their parents, their brothers, and sister Alice. The James family had been abroad for a year, moving from country to country as the senior Henry James continued his obsessive search for the perfect education for his children.

There are ten letters written by young William James between 1856 and 1859 to a school friend, Edgar Beach Van Winkle, that have been given scant attention. Except for Gerald E. Myers, who referred to them, quoting at length from only one, and R.B. Perry from three, these boyhood letters have been ignored by James' biographers. Van Winkle was friends with both William and Henry when the James family lived on 14th Street in New York City. In his first volume of Henry James Letters, Leon Edel published one brief note from young Henry to Van Winkle. But Henry's postscript to one of William's 1858 letters, quoted partially by Myers, provides a sample of the future novelist's writing style, along with a touch of fraternal irritability with his older brother.

William's letters are clearly written, extraordinarily articulate essays, giving his friend Ed full details on every aspect of their unsettled life abroad, as the five James children were shepherded from country to country and school to school. In 73 handwritten pages he provided details of his studies, along with vivid descriptions of the cities in which they lived and their inhabitants, as well the interiors of their homes. His